According to a Nielsen consumer report, African Americans are voracious consumers of media, watching 37 percent more television than any other slice of American demography. While that’s not new news, it is disturbing that we don’t completely understand the connection between our TV consumption and the huge profits generated by our connection to television.

To be fair, some TV programming can actually be beneficial. The recent coverage of the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” opened the eyes of generations of Americans who were unaware of the brutality of racial oppression in America. Much of television, however, is simply escapist entertainment for us, but a tremendous cash cow for programmers and advertisers. Take for example “Empire” on Fox. The network is known for its history of racist banter and has exploited Black America while simultaneously benefiting from Black consumers. Statistics show that “Empire” is Fox’s highest grossing show in three years, which translates into a huge pay-off for Fox.

How big?

How about the $45.2 billion Comcast/Time Warner merger? How about the $48.5 billion AT&T acquisition of DirecTV or the estimated $1.3 trillion dollars spent annually by Black consumers? Not to mention the $20 billion lawsuit filed by the National Association of African American Owned Media and Entertainment Studios Networks, against Comcast, Time Warner, and other civil rights organizations as party to a plan to ensure that profits from Black viewership continue pouring into the same pockets?

We’ve watched with interest and commented on this situation earlier, but the situation has not improved. We will reserve judgment on the soundness of Entertainment Studios Network’s CEO Byron Allen’s pending legal action, but there are a few things of which we are absolutely certain:

No telecom giant has a plan for meaningful participation/inclusion of Black business in their day-to-day procurement activity;

No programming giant has a plan to include, develop or support the development of positive Black portrayals to any meaningful degree;

No cable/pay TV provider makes programming targeting Black consumers available at their basic service level, which requires their best customers to pay extra to view their favorite shows;

No advertiser using the TV/PayTV medium includes Black business in any significant way in the development, production, delivery/distribution of their products to this loyal consumer base.

Telecom companies and consumer product companies are gearing up for an assault on your wallets like nothing you’ve ever seen, and if you’re riveted by the latest episode or game-of-the-week, you may not even notice your pocket being picked. Decisions about your money are being made right now. These decisions are being made by people who don’t know you, and whose only interest is how long you’re in front of your TV before you go buy the products they are selling.

We understand it’s about business – big business. We also understand that it is Black consumers’ money that makes the business so big. But if Black businesses don’t flourish as a result of all this activity designed to move dollars out of Black pockets, we’ll be back to “Good Times” in the projects instead of building Empires. All the more reason to invest money in the Black community. If you can devote time to watching your favorite television show, then you can also devote time to buying from your local Black businesses. Make #Blackdollarsmatters not just a hashtag, but a way of life.

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament, better known as “March Madness” is back.

A total of 68 teams compete in a single-elimination game format highlighted by the “Sweet 16,” the “Elite 8” and the “Final Four” from which a champion is crowned.

The 31 conference winners are awarded automatically berths. Another 37 teams are determined by a selection committee that chooses the best of the remaining teams. Forbes estimates that each victory is worth roughly $256,000 and a trip to the Final Four is worth $9.5 million for three weeks of basketball.

CBS and TBS paid the NCAA $10.8 billion for joint broadcast rights to the tournament. Along with the steep price tag comes revenue from broadcasting the tournament, both on television and via other media outlets. CBS is estimated to have raked in about $620 million from TV advertising alone, while revenues from “non-traditional” sources were reportedly up 20 percent.TV money for the NCAA basketball tournament is on top of conference deals. The Big-10 deal will pay each school $45 million annually. Pac-12 schools will each receive between $25-30 million annually under their new deal.Big 12 schools will each receive $20 million and each ACC school $17 million under their new deals.

Conference tournament play leading up to March Madness is also lucrative. The ACC tournament will generate more than $25 million in economic impact to Greensboro, where more than 25 percent of the population lives below the poverty level. The Pac-12 basketball conference will create an economic impact between $25 million and $27 million. The Big-10 tournament will generate double digit-millions for Indianapolis, ranked ninth among the poorest cities in the U.S.

On the mid-major level, the MAC tournament is predicted to generate $14 million in economic impact to the city of Cleveland. A decade ago, Cleveland was considered the poorest big city in the U.S. and today, just one city of at least 250,000 people has a higher poverty rate than Cleveland. The MVC tournament is projected to generate more than $16 million in economic impact to the city long regarded as one of the poorest cities in the U.S., with a 32.3 percent poverty rate also considered one of the nation’s most dangerous cities.

Led by the highest single-season payout in history, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski at $9.6 million, 35 coaches are pulled down more than $1 million in 2014. Most of them will also pocket 6-figure bonuses tied to remaining with the school and tournament performance. Virginia’s Tony Bennett leads the way with a maximum bonus of $1.4 million on top of a $2.2 million base salary. A dozen or so coaches, all White, earn $2.5 million or more per season, not counting benefits, incentives or any of the perks coaches routinely receive.

On the first Monday in April one coach will emerge with a celebratory strand of net and the national championship. Many more, if history holds, will cash in with new or considerably sweetened contracts. In 2006, for example, the coaches of six of the tournament’s Elite Eight teams parlayed their success into new deals.

In addition to direct economic benefit, success in the tournament also translates to indirect economic impact. The unexpected NCAA tournament run by mid-major Virginia Commonwealth University in 2011 translated into a 219 percent bump in licensing royalties, an increase of 25 licensees from 126 to 151.It has been reported that between $100 and $227 million will be wagered legally on tournament games through licensed sports books with another $2.5 billion in illegal betting.

Today, Black players account for 58 percent of Division 1 college basketball players, while making up 2.8 percent of all students on the campuses of the teams from which the tournament champion will be crowned. The rosters of the 68 tournament teams will likely be even more colorful. According to Sonny Vaccaro, upwards of 99 percent of the star players are Black. Vaccaro should know. After signing his pioneering shoe contract with Michael Jordan in 1984, Vaccaro built sponsorship empires successively at Nike, Adidas, and Reebok. Nevertheless, Whites held 85 percent of all head coaching positions in all three divisions (Division I, II and III) of men’s basketball. Blacks held 22 percent of the head coaching positions, up from a low of 18 percent in 2012.

There was a gap of nearly 25 percent in graduation rates between White (89 percent) and (65 percent) Black players in last year’s tournament.

The salary of a dozen or so White coaches is nearly half of the total athletic operating budget for the teams in the CIAA, MEAC, SIAC, SWAC and GCC, which cover everything from coaching salaries to equipment, game operations and scholarships. No wonder most HBCUs are struggling to stay afloat.

If it’s “madness” in March, then what do you call the year round disparities resulting from the commercial exploitation of Black athletic talent?

Everett L. Glenn, an attorney and former sports agent, was one of the first agents to represent multiple NFL and NBA first-round draft picks in the same year. His clients have included three NFL Hall of Fame inductees and 11 first-round draft picks. He can be reached at eglenn@thensa.org.

I know from firsthand experience that the “criminal justice system” today in the United States is in serious and urgent need of reform, repair and restructuring. Millions of families have been devastated by the “overcriminalization” of people in America. Black American families in particular have suffered and continue to suffer disproportionately as a result of an unjust system of justice.

When I was unjustly incarcerated in the 1970s as member of the famed Wilmington Ten civil rights case, I personally witnessed how the massive warehousing of prison inmates in overcrowded prison cells led to unspeakable dehumanization and self-destruction. In fact, the inhumanity and senselessness of the prison system itself directly contributed to the increased in violence and prison recidivism.

Forty-five years ago, the myriad of problems concerning the nation’s courts and prison systems was not seen as a national priority. Today, however, the dysfunction of the criminal justice system is not only a matter of national and global disgrace, it has also now become a multi-billion dollar counterproductive albatross around the neck of the nation.

According to a fact sheet by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), during the last four decades the prison population in the U.S. “quadrupled-from roughly 500,000 to 2.3 million people.” There are nearly a million Black Americans in jails and prisons across the country.

The NAACP has identified the following other racial disparities in U.S. incarceration:

African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of Whites;

Together, African American and Hispanics comprised 58 percent of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the U.S. population;

According to a November 2007 report titled, “Unlocking America,” if African American and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rates of Whites, today’s prison and jail populations would decline by approximately 50 percent;

One in six Black men had been incarcerated as of 2001. If current trends continue, one in three Black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime

1 in 100 African American women are in prison

Nationwide, African-Americans represent 26 percent of juvenile arrests, 44 percent of youth who are detained, 46 percent of the youth who are judicially waived to criminal court, and 58 percent of the youth admitted to state prisons (Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice).

The recent public outcries about allegations of police brutality, prosecutorial misconduct, and unfair targeting of judicial sanctions based on race and socioeconomic status are all symptoms of a much border and larger systemic problem.

The problems of inequalities within the criminal justice system are structural and institutional. While the U.S. is only 5 percent of the world’s population, 25 percent of the world’s prisoners are being held in the U.S.

Yet, the calls for reform of the criminal justice system are not revolutionary or misplaced. Both conservatives and liberals seem to agree that some fundamental changes need to be put in place when it comes to the nation’s courts, sentencing, jails and prisons. What is missing is a sense of urgency to get reform actions and policies established. Every day and every hour Black America is negatively impacted by the criminal justice system.

The Pew Charitable Trust has a study that documents the correlation between mass incarceration and the persistence of poverty in the U.S. There is no question that in the Black American community the lingering negative effects of imprisonment and poverty are closely related. Similarly a revealing Villanova University study on poverty and criminal justice found that “had mass incarceration not occurred, poverty would have decreased by more than 20 percent….. several million fewer people would have been in poverty in recent years.”

We all should find ways and means to tackle the reformation of the criminal justice system as a top priority. It is urgent and it is long overdue. So many lives and so many families are at risk. If we do not assert the responsibility to demand change and reform of a system that continues to brutalize and harm our families and communities, then we will not be our sisters and brothers keepers as we should.

Benjamin F. Chavis, Jr. is the President and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and can be reached for national advertisement sales and partnership proposals at: dr.bchavis@nnpa.org; and for lectures and other professional consultations at: http://drbenjaminfchavisjr.wix.com/drbfc

Nothing was more startling than when a cardiologist looked me directly in the eyes and said matter-of-factly: “It looks like you had a heart attack.” I was dumbfounded. When? Where? How much damage was done? Why didn’t I know it?

It certainly didn’t feel like I had suffered a heart attack.

I had just covered and participated in the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Ala. The ceremonies had special significance to me because as a senior at Druid High School in Tuscaloosa, I had participated in the last day of the march in Montgomery, where I saw James Baldwin and Harry Belafonte for the first time.

Ann and I arrived a day early, had dinner with Susan Gandy, the youngest of my three sisters, who had driven over to Montgomery from Tuskegee with her husband, Iverson, Jr., and my neice, Rachel.

In addition to covering the president’s speech Saturday, I had received a Freedom Flame Award that night and on Sunday morning was one of the speakers at the Martin and Coretta King Unity Breakfast. I walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Sunday and completed my writing and editing for the NNPA News Service on Monday.

On Wednesday night, I felt a slight pain in my chest, but dismissed it as indigestion. It continued Thursday night. When the pain persisted Friday night, Ann insisted on taking me to the hospital and I acquiesced.

We ended up at Emory Johns Creek Hospital. To Ann’s disbelief, I grabbed my iPad mini, a book, my charger, and a notebook as we headed out of the door. I know how long the wait can be in emergency rooms and did not want to be without reading material if I became trapped in the waiting lounge.

But once my symptoms were shared with the intake nurses, I was whizzed through the paperwork and placed in a room to wait for a doctor, to be administered an EKG and, of course, give blood.

“We’re going to keep you overnight to see what’s happening,” the attending physician told me. From the way he said “keep me,” I deduced that they were not keeping me around just to get to know me better. Something was amiss and I wasn’t sure what it was. I was wheeled into a private room in the Intensive Care Unit, where I was closely monitored around the clock, had blood extracted – usually at ungodly hours – and hooked up to a series of instruments. A hospital is not place to get sleep; it’s the only place in the world where they wake you up to give you a sleeping pill.

I was told around midnight that at 7 a.m. Saturday, a stent would be inserted into my heart to unblock a clogged artery. At the age of 50, I had a triple bypass. I had played quarterback at Druid High and Knoxville College and neither drank – not even wine – smoked nor used illicit drugs. Yet, an athletic past and clean living were not sufficient. I was the son of the South and I had grown up in a family where our grease was cooked in grease.

Now, 18 years later, I was told that of the three bypassed arteries, one was completely blocked, one was 97 percent blocked, and one was functioning fine. The surgery itself was not as dramatic as the bypass, which required the heart to be stopped temporarily. This time, the cardiologist made an incision in my groin, placed a stent over a balloon catheter and slid it into the heart muscle to improve blood flow. I was awake, but did not feel any pain.

From there, the ICU nurses — especially Glenn,Rene, KayLee and Shig —took fantastic care of me. They could not have provided better care, even if that meant waking me constantly.

I had a follow-up visit and a stress test with Dr. Jigishu Dhabuwala at the North Atlanta Heart and Vascular Clinic before being released to the care of Dr. Boisey O. Barnes, my regular cardiologist in Washington. I spoke with Dr. Barnes during this period and before I returned home, he had already discussed getting me into a heart rehabilitation program and enrolling me in a Harvard study to prevent second heart attacks.

After writing about my bypass 18 years ago, Bill Pickard, a Detroit businessman, said I had probably saved his life because he took some immediate steps to improve his health after reading about my challenge in Emerge magazine.

At the urging of “Uncle Mike” Fauvelle of Setauket, N.Y., I am writing about my second close call with death, hoping that it, too, will prompt you to not only pay closer attention to your health, but be aware of the small signs of trouble and do something about it immediately if you sense something is awry.

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine, is editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service (NNPA) and BlackPressUSA.com. He is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. Curry can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com. You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge and George E. Curry Fan Page on Facebook. See previous columns at http://www.georgecurry.com/columns.

Congress is about to strike a deal that takes care of seniors and doctors but leaves low-income and “at-risk” children short. Congress’ annual struggle to avoid cuts in Medicare reimbursement rates so physicians will continue to give seniors the care they need is widely considered must-pass bipartisan legislation. Known as the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) or “doc fix,” this annual process often provides a vehicle for moving other legislative health priorities.

Last year, it included one year of funding for the important Maternal and Infant Early Childhood Home Visiting program. While Congress has long discussed passing a permanent “doc fix” – leaders in the House of Representatives have now released an outline for doing it and plan to act on it this week. They hope the Senate will follow and act before the current “doc fix” expires March 31.

This is great news for seniors, but why is Congress leaving children behind by extending funding for the successful bipartisan Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and the Maternal and Infant Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (MIECHV) for only two years? The cost of the “doc fix” is about $140 billion, while a two-year extension of CHIP and home visiting funding is less than $6 billion. Yet in the House proposal this increase required an “offset” – meaning it had to be paid for, while the “doc fix” that is more than 20 times more expensive does not. This is profoundly unjust to children whose lives are equally important.

A clean four-year CHIP funding extension and four years of funding for home visiting must be included in any final “doc fix” package. Certainly, the price tag is not the obstacle. Funding for CHIP and home visiting for four years is expected to add up to less than $12 billion to serve millions of vulnerable children, a critical investment in the health of lower-income children.

Today, more than 8 million children depend on CHIP for health coverage. Together with Medicaid, CHIP has played a vital role in bringing the number of uninsured children to the lowest level on record. Simply put, CHIP is a bipartisan success story. But if funding is not extended quickly, up to 2 million children could become uninsured, and millions more would have to pay significantly more for less comprehensive coverage. This would reverse the progress made over the past two decades and create a health coverage gap among children in working families.

The vast majority of governors, both Democrats and Republicans, share our concerns about CHIP funds expiring abruptly. They are concerned about higher costs and inadequate benefits for children, budget challenges to cover children without CHIP, and an increase in uninsured children if CHIP funding ends.

The Children’s Defense Fund strongly supports a clean four-year extension of CHIP through 2019 because the new health insurance exchanges need at least four years to make changes to ensure children have comparable pediatric benefits with costs to families no higher than in CHIP today. It is highly unlikely these improvements will be enacted and implemented by 2017.

CHIP coverage saves money for states and the federal government. It is more efficient than private health insurance, costs less than subsidized exchange coverage and provides the comprehensive coverage that gives children and families access to the pediatricians, specialists and special facilities children need.

Four years of funding for the Maternal and Infant Early Childhood Home Visiting program is also a bargain. It brings quality home visiting to children and parents in every state and the District of Columbia and has bipartisan roots. Quality voluntary home visiting programs implement a two-generation strategy in which preschool children under age five and their parents benefit by being connected to community resources. MIECHV will end March 31 if funding is not extended. A four year extension will allow states to expand their programs and reach many more children.

Almost 80 percent of families participating in the MIECHV program had household incomes at or below 100 percent of the Federal Poverty Line. As in CHIP, where states have flexibility to craft their programs, states that receive MIECHV funding can tailor their programs to serve the specific needs of their communities but have to meet certain benchmarks.

Congress must stop playing politics with children and pass four more years of funding for CHIP and MIECHV as part of the “doc fix” package if millions of children are not to be left with uncertainty and at greater risk. We need to ensure our children are healthy, supported, and strong if they are going to be able to support our growing number of seniors in the future.

Marian Wright Edelman is president of the Children’s Defense Fund whose Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities. For more information go to www.childrensdefense.org

It is not uncommon for Black people ask each other questions such as, “Why do Blacks seem to have more trouble than other groups agreeing on efforts to improve their quality of life, pooling their resources, or otherwise coming together around a common goal?”The reasons are complex, but clear enough for interested, thoughtful and caring people.They include Blacks generally having lost, or tending to minimize moral and ethical values, being less respectful of one another and less knowledgeable of their rich heritage and storied resilience, despite near insurmountable odds.All of these things reduce our ability to develop the unity crucial for gaining social, legal, economic and political justice.

Black unity is a perquisite for sustainable change but it has become a dust-covered relic.Bastardized remnants remain but are found mostly in venues that do not advance our collectiveinterests.We continue to emulate whites’ individualistic and materialistic values without full access to their benefits. Therefore, the collective unity necessary for effectively working with others has become a faint or totally lost memory.

Discussions about fundamental ideology and philosophy are rare among Blacks these days.During the 1960s, America’s foremost Black leaders, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X, came from two distinct religions and philosophical orientations, but both contributed greatly to Blacks’ struggle for freedom and justice.Nationalism, identified more with Malcolm than King, was and remains a key construct in the ongoing struggle for group progress and survival. (Basically, unity is a synonymous with group solidarity.)

The consciousness, motivation and activism that fueled the civil rights movement are increasingly rare, though still sorely needed. Back then, it was not necessary to define the common purpose; it was a universal call for freedom and justice. Now, in addition to an absence of common ground around key issues, class has become an increasingly divisive factor in Black America.The middle class tends to turn their backs on poorer Blacks, even thoughobviously,they, too, remain targets of racial discrimination.Middle class Blacks are conspicuously absent in efforts to improve failing inner city schools, substandard housing, poverty, police brutality, etc. They tend to rationalize that these things no longer affect them.Consequently, poor Blacks, already less equipped to challenge the prevailing power structure, are further hampered by the middle class that blindly no longer participates in the struggle for justice.

Renewed Black consciousness and unified action are vital ingredients in challenging systemic obstacles to Black progress.Moreover, such action is grounded in group solidarity, not individualism, and underscores the significance of culture and racial pride in achieving collective progress.

Professor Ron Daniels points out there was always a tension between those who preferred integration into America’s body politic as the primary goal of the Black freedom struggle, and nationalists who see integration as only one possibility in the quest for self-determination and have always advocated maintaining Black institutions as integral to achieving full freedom.Malcolm X was the most influential proponent of Black Nationalism in the latter part of the 20th century.He strongly influenced the leaders of Black consciousness, Black power and the Pan African movement that eclipsed the integrationists’ faction within Black struggles after the 1960s.

In Malcolm’s words, “The political philosophy of Black nationalism means Black people should control the politics and politicians in their own community.We should control the economy of our community……..its social philosophy only means that we have to get together and remove the evils, vices, alcoholism, drug addiction and the other evils that are destroying the moral fabric of our community.”(The Ballot or the Bullet, 1964)He also said, “The purpose of racial solidarity is to build internal capacity for self-development to enhance the social, economic and political well-being of Black people.” His remarks are as relevant today as they were 60 years ago and are a telling commentary on the snail-like pace of Black group progress.Dr. Daniels reminds us the call for Black empowerment generated a renewed interest in reconnecting with African groups and working for Pan Africanism—the global solidarity of African people everywhere.He asserts Black Nationalism also led to the formation of Black caucuses in white and Black organizations, e.g., The Congressional Black Caucus, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, Associations of Black psychologists, teachers, engineers, etc.

It is essential to reaffirm racial consciousness and solidarity as means of securing Black interests.It is also important to debunk the hypocritical “post-racial” rhetoric since Barack Obama’s presidency.Blacks must address the ongoing disparities that continue to exist among themselves and between them and whites and others in employment, education, housing, income and healthcare—all are persistent indicators of barriers to controlling our own destiny.Talk of race-neutral, color-blind public policy mocks the depth of the problems that still plague Black America and we must take sustained strategic action to eradicate those barriers. This requires strong collective unity that has been lacking for many years.

Empowerment is the capacity to chart one’s own destiny.For Blacks, the unity essential for empowerment must again become as entrenched as the race-based challenges we face every day of our lives.

As March, Black History Month II—Women Focus, comes to an end, and with it, all the special speeches, learned lectures, plays, poems and various other programs and performances to celebrate and honor Black women, it is good to pause and reflect on the meaning and history of this varied and rightful attentiveness. Indeed, although recent in its current form, this rightful and righteous respect has ancient roots and a deep relevance, often hidden in the ceremonial, official and episodic engagement we lend it.

It is a complex concern not only with the women we value, even venerate, or those we know and love, work, dream, struggle and enjoy life with. Nor is it only about ancient and more recent ancestors. Nor, also, is it simply about remembering and recognizing the achievements, contributions, sacrifices and oppression of women. Indeed, it is all this and more, for at the heart of this remembrance, recognition and respect is the first-order and ultimately unavoidable question of the meaning of woman as woman and as a sacred and complementary being in the world, equally indispensable to its foundation and flourishing.

It is in ancient Egypt that we find the earliest recorded engagement with it as evidenced in their sacred texts, we now call the Husia. And it is how they engaged and answered this question of the divine and real life meaning of woman as woman and as a sacred and complementary human being in the world that caused them to create a society that respected the dignity and rights of women in ways most modern societies are still working toward.

In ancient Egypt, the deep thinkers and moral teachers, Seba, meditating on the meaning of woman and man, conceived them as sacred, divine, dignity-bearing and complementary. They posed a theology, ethics and social system that conceived of reality and rightness as requiring a complementarity of male and female principles and persons in equality and mutual respect. This reality of rightness is called Maat, the principle and practice of rightness in and of the world, i.e., in the realm of the Divine, nature and society. And it is expressed especially in truth, justice, propriety, harmony, balance, reciprocity and order which inform the rightness of our practice and relations in the world.

They began with theology, for they understood that our conception of God represents and reinforces deep-rooted beliefs and thoughts about ultimate questions and issues of life. And the question of the meaning of woman and her relation with man are among the ultimate and first-order questions. The theologians in their understanding and explanation of God did not privilege maleness by posing God as exclusively male and thus giving men a higher status in the world. Nor did they present woman as derived from man and thus of a derived relevance in her relationship with him and in the world.

Instead, they posed God, Ra, in the name and nature of Atum, i.e., Completeness and Perfection. In this completeness and perfection, Ra contains both male and female aspects without being either, forming a Divine Singleness that transcends and goes beyond them both. This understanding is reaffirmed in the prayers of the people who prayed, “Hail to you Ra, Perfect each day, Creator of all, Beneficent Mother of divine spirits and human beings.” Others prayed, calling “Ra the one who created all that exists, the father of fathers and the mother of mothers.”

Closely related to this concept, our ancestors of ancient Egypt taught us and the world that humans, male and female, are in the image of God (senen netcher), as found first in the Book of Kheti. Thus, they are divine and sacred, to be placed beyond violation, degradation and devaluation. This is a great spiritual and moral concept Africa gave the world and precedes any other similar concept from any other culture by centuries. Moreover, women and men are also defined by the ancient Seba as possessors of dignity as well as divinity. Now, this concept of dignity is indispensable to our concept of the ethical and informs our definition, defense and promotion of human rights. And it is an equally indispensable way of defining what it means to be a woman and man—in a word a human being.

Dignity (shepesu) is defined in the Husia, especially in the Book of Djedi, as an inherent worthiness which is transcendent, equal and inalienable in all. It is transcendent in that it is beyond all social and biological identities and attributes, i.e., beyond race, class, gender, and all the other ways we define ourselves and are distinguished by others. It is equal in everyone without exception or condition. And it is inalienable, incapable of being transferred or taken away by anyone. So again, woman, as well as man, is in ancient Egypt conceived in the most ethical way, as a possessor of dignity and divinity, worthy of the highest respect.

It is, then, on this basis that Kemet, ancient Egypt, conceived and put in place a legal and social system in which women were equal with men, enjoyed equal rights and participated in all areas of social, economic, religious and political life. None of this is to say Kemet was a perfect society or always practiced its highest principles or had no real and serious flaws. But we must concede the great achievements in understanding and treatment of women that these early essential and indispensable Kemetic concepts represent and the clear absence of them in other contemporary societies which made women derivative, inferior and simply supportive of men using their religious and cultural doctrines to establish and defend these practices.

At the heart of these essential, even indispensable, spiritual and ethical teachings are timeless lessons. Clearly, central to all is the sacredness of the human person, female and male, and their right to freedom from violation, degradation and devaluation. Also, there is the continuously stressed concept that we come into social being as male and female, and reflect and best express our divinity and humanity in rightful and mutual respectful relations with each other. And this too we are taught: that the sense and reality of our completeness, wholeness and fulfillment is in the practice and promise of a complementarity that constantly seeks and struggles to build the good, Maatian world we all want and deserve to live in. Such a commitment to work and struggle to radically reconceive and reconstruct this world must take as a central principle respect for our unity in diversity and our divinity in our humanity with all its flaws and rich potential for flourishing.

Why is Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a neck and neck run-off for re-election? He enjoys national press attention, advertises the endorsement of hometown favorite, President Obama, brandishes a $30 million-plus campaign war chest, largely funded by 100 or so major donors, and mobilizes wall-to-wall advertising and a professional campaign team. Yet he has not only been forced into a run-off, but polls show him still unable to win majority support.

Like any Chicago mayor, Emanuel gets his share of brickbats and insults. He’s said to be insulting and profane, but Chicago prides itself on its feisty politicians.He’s tied to downtown interests, but that has never been a problem.

The reason Emanuel is in trouble is a widespread loss of faith across the city’s Black and Latino neighborhoods. Faith, the Bible tells us, is the “substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”Faith is what sustains hope in political leaders even when times are bad. Faith is what makes voters believe that a leader feels their pain, even if he or she does not live in their neighborhoods.

And in large numbers, working families in Chicago, particularly those struggling with low wage jobs that provide no benefits and little security, have lost faith in the man now dubbed the Mayor of the 1 Percent.

What is hoped for and unseen is any plan for neighborhood redevelopment. What is hoped for and unseen is any indication of a strategy for building the economy from the bottom up.

As mayor, Emanuel has focused resources downtown, not on neighborhoods in need. The lights are bright downtown, but the poor neighborhoods live in the shadows.Emanuel shut down 50 neighborhood schools with no community consultation. He waged war on teachers, privatized janitorial services, and too often scorned public employees. Public housing has been shuttered even as private homes are foreclosed. When the schools close, neighborhoods lose resources and hope. Drug stores close; grocery stores close.

The downtown thrives while the neighborhoods continue to decline. As a 2013 study by the Grassroots Collaborative showed, the only one out of four of the jobs created downtown go to Chicagoans. And those few go primarily to residents in majority white neighborhoods, not black or Latino neighborhoods.Massive subsidies don’t begin to touch the people most in need of them.

And as a Chicago Sun Times report revealed, Whites continue to hold a disproportionate number of the highest paying jobs in the administration, particularly those that the mayor controls himself. When the highest paid aides closest to the mayor are White, no matter how dedicated, the concerns of impoverished Black and Latino neighborhoods are not likely to get priority.

Like any good politician, the mayor has reacted as his polls plummeted and his re-election stopped being a sure thing, pushing through an increase in the minimum wage. He’s also worked to extend pre-k and make two years of community college affordable. He’s now touting his Neighborhoods Now program as a development program for seven neighborhoods, but as WBEZ, Chicago Public Radio exposed, the fund is a hodgepodge of private and public projects. In fact, one-fourth of the public money is focused on projects around McCormick Park Convention Center, including two hotels and a big stadium for DePaul – hardly a program for neighborhood reconstruction.

Rahm’s challenger, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia has an underfunded campaign, but a rich message. He has the experience to deal with Chicago’s budget challenges, but he has the commitment to focus on urban reconstruction, on rebuilding neighborhoods, on putting the young to work. Against the odds, he has run a campaign that will take this race down to the wire.

When people lose faith, they lose hope. Sadly, they too often give up on politics. They see no difference between candidates, no reason to vote. The struggle to survive is hard enough.Usually, an incumbent can win re-election with the confidence that many of those who have been abandoned won’t even show up. What is stunning about the rise of challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia is the movement behind him – citizens, teachers, organizers, union members, church goers unwilling to succumb to despair, unwilling to assume that nothing can change.That is the real story of the Chicago race. Whatever happens in the April run-off, that movement has given people a reason to believe once more.

Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. is founder and president of the Chicago-based Rainbow PUSH Coalition. You can keep up with his work at www.rainbowpush.org

"That all citizens will be given an equal start through a sound education is one of the most basic, promised rights of our democracy.Our chronic refusal as a nation to guarantee that right for all children, including poor children, is a national disgrace...It is a failure which threatens our future as a nation of citizens called to a common purpose, allied with one another in a common enterprise, tied to one another by a common bond."

- Senator Paul Wellstone, Teachers College, Columbia University,

March 2000

NEW YORK, NY - Sitting beside his first teacher, "Miss Katie" Deadrich, in front of the one-room Texas schoolhouse he once attended, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act into law on April 11, 1965. ESEA-commonly known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB)-was a cornerstone in the president's "War on Poverty" initiative. Its intent was to close the education achievement gap between children from lower- and higher-income families. Fifty years later, with Congress currently considering a reauthorization of the law, the gap in educational opportunity, achievement and funding is growing.

For the first time in our nation's history, students of color are the majority of the U.S. student body. According to a recent survey by the Southern Education Foundation, a majority of all public school students are low-income. In another troubling milestone, The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that during the 2013-2014 school year, a majority-51 percent- of public school students were deemed eligible for free- and reduced-price meals, a common indicator of poverty. This is even more alarming when we consider a finding that our 2015 State of Black America® revealed and that we shared at the launch this week: On average, larger academic achievement gaps are in states with large urban areas home to large populations of people of color who live in highly segregated neighborhoods with high rates of concentrated high poverty.

During a press call with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan last week, we mapped out the landscape of education in America and warned against the dangerous course our nation would chart if we do not spend our education dollars where the need is the greatest. Right now in more than 20 states, school districts serving the highest percentage of low-income households spend fewer state and local dollars per student than in districts that have fewer students in poverty. The same shortchanging trend is the norm in 20 states that have a high percentage of students of color, where school districts are spending fewer dollars in those schools than in schools with a lower percentage of students of color.

The National Urban League has been-and will remain-at the forefront of this issue, having advocated for equal economic and educational opportunity for 105 years with the clear understanding that neither is mutually exclusive. This week, the National Urban League releases our annual State of Black America® report, this year titled "Save Our Cities: Education, Jobs + Justice." For the first time in the report's history, we have also included a state-by-state Education Equality Index™ and ranking. The index examines state-level racial and ethnic disparities in K-12 education, documenting the extent of Black and Hispanic achievement gaps, when compared to whites, in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The State Education Index also includes supporting data on some of the factors that contribute to narrowing or widening these gaps.

The National Urban League adds its advocacy and voice to the chorus of education and civil rights groups, government officials and families demanding that Congress revisit and recommit to the original vision and mission of ESEA. When signing the bill, President Johnson declared that our nation would "bridge the gap between helplessness and hope for...educationally deprived children."

How can we begin to bridge the gap President Johnson spoke of 50 years ago, when all-too-often the greatest percentage of education dollars is allocated to already resource-rich schools? How can we begin to make the promise of equality in education a reality when we refuse to admit that equality in education does not always translate to equitable funding?

The 1954 groundbreaking Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education made it clear that "education must be made available to all on equal terms." But as long as Congress passes laws that continue to embolden state school districts to exacerbate inequities by providing less money to those with the greatest need, we do neither honor nor justice to the spirit of the law-or our nation's children and future.

These days Blacks are wondering whether things will get any worse, because arguably, we are still the worse off on any measure of social, economic or political status. Will things get worse?I suggest they can, but needn’t; the major determinant is leadership.If Black leaders continue to emulate the dominant society’s individualistic, materialistic-based model, things will likely get worse.But if Black leaders again embrace group-oriented priorities, grounded in moral and ethical values, Black life will surely improve.

Challenges and barriers constantly collide, impeding Blacks’ progress and the seemingly endless struggle for justice and equality would have proved fatal long ago but for our storied resilience.Resilience alone, however, is not sufficient; sustainable action is necessary because these days, Blacks are functioning as mere shadows of their full potential.

Ineffective, self-serving leadership and its cohort, disunity, render Blacks’ demands way short of commensurate with their needs and numbers in the population.Moving from individual to group-oriented leadership is essential. Even collaboration with other groups is wasted time and energy unless undertaken from positions of strength, not weakness.Moreover, Black leaders often seem to lack the will and/or integrity to come up with well thought out planning and action designed specifically to benefit those they are entrusted to serve.

The moral and economic principles and teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X have been largely discarded and, as Black commentator Bruce Dixon intones, “Many Black leaders are unwilling or unable to defend the opportunities that made their emergence possible.”Emulating Whites’ individualism and materialism is contrary to Blacks’ best interests, yet, the community fails to insist its leaders seek alternative approaches and strategies that better address their specific needs. This must change.

Blacks also tend to leave nagging questions about white privilege unanswered.For example, poverty, extensive violence in certain neighborhoods, unemployment, poor education, etc. are obviously major problems that most Black leaders fail to tackle head-on, arguably because they have internalized America’s values with severely limited access to its benefits. Here’s a cogent definition of white privilege by author Tim Wise (2008):“When you can claim that being mayor of a small town, then governor of a sparsely populated state makes you ready to potentially be President (Sarah Palin), and people don’t soil themselves with laughter, and being a Black U.S. senator, two-term state senator and constitutional scholar (Obama) means you’re ‘untested’.”

In Los Angeles, as in other urban areas, everyone knows, or should know, public schools do not educate Black students and Black neighborhoods frequently top the list of homicides-with Blacksare primary victims.Judging from their non-response, however, too many Black leaders seem to have little interest in dealing with this and other race-related challenges confronting their Black constituents.Do they actually believe these problems are low priority or they cannot be solved?

Perceptions and priorities of today’s Blacks and those in the 1960s concerning morality and political and economic issues are starkly different.Then, the unquestioned clarion call was for freedom and justice.Today, although civil rights violations are still common, the primary victims have been largely abandoned by Black leadership for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the middle class now better off financially, can afford more expensive trappings and tend to look down on their poorer brethren. Many act as though “the play is over, the curtain has come down and I’ve got mine…. let them get theirs.’Further, Black leadership, like others but with far greater negative implications, differs substantially among themselves on political and economic issues and remedies. These days, they even disagree on the definition of the community’s problems.Also, the chasm between today’s middle-class and poorer Blacks makes it even harder to navigate an already unequal playing field.

The soothing-for-the nation myth of Brown v. Board of Education and subsequent passage of civil and voting rights legislation have lulled many Blacks into believing they have “made it” and live in a ”post-racial society.”Although never of one voice, even during the civil rights era, Blacks have united during crises and persevered despite massive odds. Such unity is crucial now.

Today, traditional Black civil rights organizations tend to distance themselves from the rank-and-file and depend heavily on corporate money.Unfortunately, the rhetoric of concern has replaced most sustainable hands-on civil rights organizations efforts to secure full rights and justice for those most in need.

Leadership is the lynchpin of actual change but sadly, too many Black leaders are neither effective nor accountable to their constituents, which makes group-oriented leadershipmore critical than ever. Although Black elected officials are most often singled out for criticism, all Blacks in leadership positions must be accountable by those they represent.

Slavery’s tentacles still impede Blacks’ efforts to unify: This is manifested in scores of self-serving opportunists masquerading as bona fide leaders.If Black leaders continue to emulate the individualistic and materialistic white leadership model, the naysayers will have been proven correct and the future is indeed bleak. Ultimately, however, the Black community itself is responsible for ensuring this does not happen. But it is also Black leaderships’ responsibility to help disprove such a fatalistic prognostication by charting a course that actually empowers their much maligned, long-suffering constituents.

Whatever we think, say or assume about the racist rant and chant of the young White men of the SAE fraternity and their female companions at the University of Oklahoma, it isneither new nor unexpected, isolated, rare or without deep social roots. Indeed, there is a history of violence, of domination, deprivation and degradation in this country against African Americans and other peoples of color which must be unflinchingly faced and taken into critical consideration whenever we seriously discuss and deal with the social disorder and humanly disabling and destructive ideology and practice of racism.

Clearly, it is past pathetic that after centuries of anti-racist struggle, education and engagement on various levels and in various venues, it takes of late a 9-10 second video to remind society that racism remains a systemic and endemic social disorder; that it is deep within the White American system and psyche; and that like viruses of various kinds, it lays permanently below the surface, waiting for an opportunity and opening to attack those vulnerable and show itself in discomforting, disabling, disfiguring and deadly ways.

One of the most instructive lessons to emerge from this anti-Black demonstration is the further discrediting of the easy assumption and often unqualified assertion that there is a post-racial America and the attendant myth that the so-called millennials—the youngest generation, are less racist and more tolerant, progressive and prone toward wanting justice and equality for everyone. Actually, their toleration, according to polls, translates as being more receptive to interracial marriage and dating, a sort of extension of the earlier limiting and self-blinding liberal assumption that taking Blacks to bed, breakfast and lunch was the key to changing racist relations in this country. But this form of tolerance, like those before it, has little or nothing to do with achieving racial justice, i.e., change in racial relations and positions of power, wealth and social status in society. For it is essentially personal rather than social, basically interactional rather than structural, and thus ends up leaving everyone, those disadvantaged and advantaged, oppressed and oppressor, essentially in place with a declaration of love, “colorblindness” and personal commitment that does not extend or last beyond its liberal and sometimes conservative advocates.

Indeed, post-racial ideology and jargon have actually tended to undermine and hinder the struggle for racial justice and the end of racist domination, deprivation and degradation. Sometimes, even young Blacks and other peoples of color judge social conditions of their people or even their families by their personal relations with Whites; by ignoring American realities of race and class, like their White generational counterparts, and arguing with and like them that having a Black President demonstrates the existence of equal opportunities between people of color and Whites. Certainly, former generations transmit their ideas, stereotypes, hatreds and hostilities to succeeding generations and without radical and consistent corrective intervention, these ideals and practices stay in place, even if they are no longer expressed in obvious and open practices of racism.

Like the current struggles against police violence and its larger systemic expressions, this racist chant and demonstration indicate clearly that White racism remains resolute and resilient, wearing an endless array of camouflage and disguises, shape-shifting like those malevolent beings in science fiction. Indeed, in this shape-shifting capacity, racism and racists show their dominance while disguising it, and demonstrate their violence by committing it under the camouflage, cover and color of law. And this happens, not only in the streets of large cities and small towns, but also in courts, schools, prisons, jails, universities and other institutions. For racism, unlike racial prejudice, is not simply hatred and hostility toward different others, but the capacity and process of turning that hatred and hostility into social policy and socially sanctioned practice.

So, no, this was no accidental mixture of ignorance, alcohol and youth being chemically-relaxed and lost in the moment. They are heirs of their history, and supporters of that which came before them in the racialized and racist frat fantasy land they created for themselves of “Black-face functions”, “jungle parties”, “auctions of the enslaved”, “Cripsmas Christmas parties”, “Compton cookouts” and various other racist pranks and pretensions of racial superiority. They had taken their bus ride boozing, tuxedoed-up and talking White trash, encouraging their women to join them and stand or stoop by their men. And they fell into a song of celebration of themselves at the expense of Black would-be pledges, vowing to never allow them to be members and asserting that you can hang them from a tree, but no “n” will never be a member of SAE fraternity.

Furthermore, they smiled and laughed as they sang and chanted, calling up memories of the history of the lynching of Black people, especially Black men, in former times. Then as now, there were the women, there along with their children for this shared White communal blood ritual of torture and murder, of battering and of burning, boiling and skinning alive, and of hanging and cutting off and preserving penis and testicles in a prehistoric ritual of capturing the enemies manhood and strength. Likewise, for this brutally insensitive, hurtful and threatening anti-Black action to happen in Oklahoma also calls to mind the savage sacking and burning of Black Tulsa in 1921, the merciless murder of hundreds, if not thousands, of Black people, and leaving in its wake thousands of wounded, homeless, horrified and terrified victims.

This is the American historical and current reality we are compelled to deal with and it suggests and even urges that we put aside pathetic and self-disabling myths of post-racial millennials and American society and deal decisively with the race and class realities of America. And in this urgent struggle against racism, we must not conveniently focus on a single White fraternity or even all of them, but must also call into question the climate and conditions on campus and in society which lay the basis and perpetuate the structural conditions for these ideas and practices to remain rooted and resilient.

In addition to customary diversity discussion on campus after such racist events, it’s important to make an ongoing commitment to provide adequate budget, policies and programs directed toward capacity building and climate change. This means initiatives directed toward increased admission and retention of Black students and increased hiring of Black faculty, staff and administrators as well as initiatives for the sustainment and advancement of Black and other ethnic studies departments and programs. And in society, there is no alternative to righteous and relentless struggle that involves education, mobilization, organization, confrontation and radical transformation of persons, peoples, campuses and society. Anything less is at best a band-aid and at worst, the covering up a festering and infectious wound that can do nothing except destroy the health, well-being and future of the people and society who let it go untreated.

Despite the fact that African Americans overwhelmingly support raising the minimum wage in Los Angeles, getting this done is an uphill fight.The Raise the Wage is a coalition of community organizations, non-profits, labor unions, business owners and religious leaders urging LA city leadership to champion and the city to adopt the strongest minimum wage policy in the nation. The campaign to raise wages is part of a growing income equality access movement across the nation.

African Americans are 9.4% or 350,000 of the city of Los Angeles’s population but 42% make less than $15 per hour; 16.7% of Black women and 14.3% of Black men have full-time low-income jobs.Twenty-nine percent of African Americans live in poverty, more than triple their population in the city. The unemployment rate for African Americans in the region is over 21% higher than Latinos and whites, despite being a smaller percent of the population.Nearly 40,000 of African Americans workers do not earn a living wage and African American women are paid 64-cents to every dollar paid to white males.Nationally, that translates to almost $300 less per week. As a result, over 30% of African American children in the region live in poverty.

Los Angeles is one of the most unaffordable cities. An estimated 77% of low income families spend more than a third of their incomes on rent, 22% on transportation and 13% on food. At the current minimum wage, Los Angeles workers are forced into chronic debt to cover basic expenses. Fifteen dollars an hour would result in $9 billion in additional family spending.The California Budget Project reports a single person without children needs at least $15.79 to live in the Los Angeles area; the minimum wage would return $152 million per year back to the city of Los Angeles.

Four out of five low-wage workers work around and serve people, but do not have sick leave.If forced to go to work sick, they compromise their own health and that of customers.Fifty-percent of all contagious stomach flu infections are estimated to relate to a sick food-handler.Without earned sick days, workers are twice as likely to go to the ER and five times as likely to take their child or family member to the ER because they are unable to take time off.A federal study found workers having access to earned sick leave was a major common factor in preventing health outbreaks in restaurants.For a low-income family without earned sick days, taking off three-and-a-half days sick without wages is the equivalent to losing a month’s worth of groceries.

Los Angeles voters are overwhelmingly in favor of increasing the minimum wage to $15.25 an hour and including a cost of living adjustment, earned sick days, and enforcement to make sure employers comply.Support is strong countywide and in the city of Los Angeles.Therefore, support is widespread geographically and demographically.

Key findings of an EMC research survey include the following: Voters overwhelmingly support the minimum.When asked if they support or oppose raising the minimum wage in Los Angeles to $15.25 an hour, with annual adjustments for inflation, earned sick days and enforcement provisions, 66% of voters countywide indicate support (48% strongly support).In the city of Los Angeles, 69% of voters are supportive (52% strongly support).

Providing earned sick pay is a high priority.Support for requiring employers to provide earned sick days is almost universal, with 85% support countywide (62% strongly) and 88% in the city (67% strongly).And when voters are asked to choose between raising the minimum wage along with paid sick leave and enforcement or raising the wage without paid sick leave and enforcement, including those provisions is preferred by more than two-thirds of voters in both the city and county.

Voters prefer a proposal that includes $15.25 an hour.Voters were asked to choose which they prefer:a minimum wage of $15.25 an hour or a minimum wage of $13.25 an hour The $15.25 proposal is preferred by a strong 12-point margin in the county and a 15-point margin in the city.

Specific enforcement provisions are very popular as well.An overwhelming 88% of voters countywide support protecting workers against employer retaliation for reporting wage and labor violations (87% citywide), 74% giving workers the right to sue (79% in the city), and 74% revoking business licenses for repeat offenders (73% in the city).

Families across Los Angeles are struggling now.That’s why over 810,000 workers in low-paying industries like fast-food, hotels, car washers and retail, along with community members, have all been fighting for $15 per hour as soon as possible.Every week, $26 million is stolen for the pockets of workers by employers violating the law.Workers deserve to be guaranteed a paycheck when they work.Those who become ill have also been forced to make the virtually impossible decision of staying at home or going to work sick—forced to choose between their health, childcare, and paying rent or putting food on the table.This needs to change.

RAISE THE WAGE is urging the city of Los Angeles to adopt the strongest minimum wage policy in the nation by providing: 1) $15 per hour as soon as possible, indexed to the cost-of-living, 2) Comprehensive wage theft enforcement, 3) Guaranteed earned sick days.

There is no justice-yielding present or dignity-affirming future for a people that concedes its rightful place as primary subject in its own history and willingly becomes at best secondary in the self-congratulatory myths and airbrushed history of a society that refuses to face and thus cannot repair its flawed and broken self. The coming to Selma by current and retired elected officials to join the 50th anniversary commemoration of the March in Selma already suggested that the history of the March and the larger Black Freedom Movement, both its Civil Rights and Black Power phases, of which the March was a part would be drastically revised. Indeed, as expected, it was a history airbrushed, bleached of its Blackness, almost void of the actual people and organizations who made it, redirected and redefined in its resistance and merged into the enduring monocultural myths of America searching for its higher self.

In such an airbrushed history, Selma is defined as one of the “sites that symbolize the daring of America’s character—Independence Hall, Seneca Falls, Kitty Hawk and Cape Canaveral”. First, we were resisting America’s “racist character” not trying to emulate its “daring character”. Second, there was at these places, no brutalizing, bloodletting, suffering, sacrifice and bodily resistance in the face of a ruthless and rabidly racist oppressor. The former two sites were sites of deliberation and declaration; the second two were sites of testing inventions and imagination. And Selma was a site of resolute resistance to a brutal system of oppression, i.e., White supremacy.

The high official speaking, who still can’t seem to identity Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by name and continually calls him in this and other speeches simply “a Baptist preacher”, wants us to submerge ourselves in a mindless Americanism that Dr. W. E. B. DuBois warned us against. It is an Americanism that will not allow us to identify ourselves as a people, have clear interests and aspirations, and celebrate ourselves as a people who changed the course of American history and expanded the realm of freedom in this country and the world. And it is an Americanism that peddles a self-demeaning and other-degrading patriotism that turns a blind eye to injustice, a deaf ear to truth, and a cold heart to American-caused-and-supported suffering in the world. It asks us to put country over conscience, concerns for security over civil and human rights, and corporate cultivated selfishness over the interests of the health and wellbeing of humanity and the world.

In such a history, we are nameless “ordinary Americans”. And yet, he doesn’t miss an opportunity to praise Jews as Jews, gays as gays, and other groups who are the subject of the point or speech he’s making. Certainly, this high official knows that we are by no means “ordinary Americans”, that we are African Americans, and that this Africanness makes all the difference. America has made it a mark, means and reason of oppression. And we have resolved as persons and a people to relentlessly resist this on every level. Also, even if one had never read Malcolm, Martin King, Fannie Lou Hamer, Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglass, s/he knows we are no “ordinary Americans”. Indeed for a century we’ve been, as Malcolm taught, victims of America and Americanism, “victims of democracy”, which he defines as “nothing but disguised hypocrisy”, i.e., claiming ideals it does not honor, pretending values it does not practice, and putting forth promises it does not keep.

There are places in his speech at Selma where the high official seems to recognize the awesome meaning of this struggle and the larger Black Freedom Movement. He uses the right words and references in scattered places, but he always tries to fit our struggle in a monocultural American framework and does not name our people as the subject of our own history, regardless of how many allies we had and have. He talks about the heroes, downtrodden and demeaned; yet he does not name them us. But we are the downtrodden and demeaned he dares not name; the heroes and heroines that expanded the realm of freedom in this country and the world and the subjects of the history he revises to make us disappear in a melting pot myth, long proved unnecessary and oppressive.

The commemoration marks a historic confrontation in the overall struggle of Black people for freedom, justice, equality and power over their destiny and daily lives. The bridge is a symbol of the struggle to cross over the troubled, tragedy-filled, murky and murderous waters of racial segregation and all its various ways of brutally denying the rights and destroying the lives of Black people. Our people were confronted with a horde of murderous men assembled, under the camouflage and color of law, to maim, batter, terrorize and kill. But they would not be deterred, even in their apprehension of not knowing whether they would live or die during the savage assault on them. And when this brutalizing and bloodletting ritual of repression was temporarily over in this place, they did what our tradition and culture of struggle teaches us. They picked themselves up off the ground, wiped the grit and blood off their face, assisted others, cleaned and bandaged their wounds, and defiantly resolved to continue the struggle regardless.

So the commemoration at Selma is not a commemoration of the “American experiment”, but a commemoration at a central site of struggle in the awesome march of our people, Black people, through history; a commemoration of the suffering and sacrifice, the resourcefulness and resilience that they demonstrated, and a reaffirmation of their identity and dignity as a great and noble people. It is clearly a reminder of Dr. King’s inaugural speech in his assuming leadership of the Montgomery Improvement Association. For there he says, “when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to say ‘there lived a great people—a Black people—who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization’. This is our challenge and our overwhelming responsibility”.

Let us not forget or fail to give rightful attention to the fact that the police violence that our people faced at Selma finds its current expression in Ferguson, Los Angeles, New York, Oakland, Madison and all across America. The Voting Rights Act which the struggle in Selma helped to achieve lies gutted in this self-defined democracy. And racial structural disadvantages, injustice, violence and inequities remain endemic as a disease, i.e., particular to a country or place and constantly present in spite of denials in high and low places. And finally, let us remember this: in the face of oppression, there is no remedy except relentless resistance; no strategy worth its name that doesn’t require struggle; and no way forward except across the casualty-laden battlefield on which a new society and world are conceived and brought into being.

It was clearly a White thing, not a Black thang, or a multicultural mixer of equals, and all of us could easily understand it. It was White folks’ big night out, the night of “Mr. Charlie”, “Miss Ann” and “Uncle Oscar”, a kind of White family affair—readied, reserved and red-carpeted, especially for them. Of course, we were there to watch them anxiously wait and win and to make ourselves useful as expected entertainment, drafted foils, fictive friends and local color. And like the Black maids and male servants in old black and white movies, we could only watch them with rented admiration and glaring eyes, and vicariously enjoy their honors and accolades without an iota of hope for our own.

There were some pre-Oscar and post-racial fantasies and rumors that the movie “Selma” and the memory of that historical march and moment 50 years ago might help turn rightful attention to Black excellence in the art and industry. But as usual, Uncle Oscar favored the family members of those who made him, and left no guessing about who was coming to dinner, to really be a diner. For he/they put little or nothing on our plate. And as Malcolm told and taught us, using one of the incisive analogies he is known for: “sitting at the table doesn’t make you a diner unless you eat something of what’s on the plate”.

But let’s be fair about it, we did “take out” or “take away” at least a symbolic nomination of Selma for best picture and a consolation Oscar for best song “Glory”, even if the main items of the evening, i.e., best actors, supporting actors, directors, etc., were not on the menu of nominations we had in our hands. And the exclusion of other peoples of color doesn’t explain away or ease our exclusion and injury; on the contrary, it only emphasizes and aggravates our own, for it reveals how pervasive and pernicious this racialized exclusion is.

The two Black men that received the Oscar for best song, Glory, in Selma, had two different views of who we are and what we are about and how we should engage art and the platform it provides us. Common went universal, papering over the particular and powerful meaning of the struggle in Selma has for us, as a people, and as a moral and social vanguard in this country. It is a role which Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune and Dr. Martin Luther King and so many of our ancestors asked us to always remember and honor. In noting the symbolic meaning of the Selma Bridge, Common said in Obama-esque language, “This was once a landmark of a divided nation, but now is a symbol for change”. But the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma is a site of blood-soaked and savage repression of Black people in their righteous struggle for the right to vote and to be free from official and unofficial repression. And thus, it is not simply a White-comforting symbol of anonymous “change”, but a symbol of Black suppression, suffering, sacrifice, relentless resistance and eventual triumph.

On the other hand, John Legend paid homage to his people and their history and culture of struggle, quoting Nina Simone’s assertion that “it’s an artist’s duty to reflect the times in which we live”. He explained that “We wrote this song for a film that was based on events that were 50 years ago, but we say Selma is now, because the struggle for justice is right now”. Legend spoke too of the erosion of voting rights and the obscene number of Black men who are “under correctional control today” and reaffirmed that “the struggle for freedom and justice is real”. He closed saying, “When people are marching with our song, we want to tell you that we are with you; we see you; we love you, and march on!”

Now these two approaches lie before us: to find, in our own lives, culture and history, meanings and messages for both us and the world; or failing to do so, self-erase, talk of transcending oneself and one’s people, and hang in mid-air as anonymous non-existent humans. But if we don’t exist, then we have no interests, no rightful claims and no legitimate concerns about being excluded, exploited, diminished or oppressed.

It is also important to note that a diversionary controversy emerged around someone named Rancic, from some mean-spirited and narrow-minded group called the Fashion Police, foul-mouthing the long and self-affirming locks of the young Black Disney Channel star, Zendaya, linking them with the smell of oil and weed. Zendaya’s response was well-crafted and dignity-affirming, not only of the “strength and beauty” of Black hair, as she said, but also by extension, a reaffirmation of the strength, beauty and dignity of Black people.For the attack reflected an ongoing problematizing and demeaning of the Black body and Black people. And her response was also a necessary corrective to this public expression of what Zendaya called “ignorant slurs and pure disrespect”. In addition to her required apology, which she made, Rancic should also divest herself of racist illusions of the right and ability to judge others based on some conscious or unconscious and racially arrogant assumption that White is “normal” and all else is deviant and in need of criticism, condemnation and correction.

These comments were racist, stereotypical, racially immodest and unmindful of what others might negatively think of the smells of White hair and bodies in various states and venues. They also demonstrate how deep-rooted and pervasive such attitudes and associated behaviors are. And, of course, it’s no problem when Whites wear locks. But an even greater concern is that these and similar racist attitudes are often turned into public policy and socially sanctioned practice and are thus very damaging to and destructive of the lives of Black people and other peoples of color. People may apologize, but the conditions negative to our lives and advancement remain unless challenged and removed.

Thus, whatever small reforms and adjustments we make in instances like these, the larger problems of systemic racial domination, deprivation and degradation must be effectively addressed. As I write this article, the LAPD has killed another Black man, Brother Africa, an unarmed and homeless man. So Ferguson and police violence have become the current symbol and focus of our struggle, but as Paul Robeson, that consummate actor and activist intellectual, reminded us and his fellow artists, writers and intellectuals, “the battlefront is everywhere; there is no sheltered rear”. Yes, Hollywood is one among those racially fortified beachheads on which we must secure a foothold, under fierce, constant and devastating fire. But we must always remember, there is a larger and longer struggle which will not only transform Hollywood, but also society itself and the people in it, including us and the way we understand and assert ourselves.

(Today’s column, A Plea for Reconciliation and Healing of The Nation, by Mildred Pitts Walter, contends that without reconciliation, America will not close the racial divide.)

Recent killings of unarmed Black men in Missouri and New York by the policeexacerbated the racial divide that has always existed in this nation.This divide is an inevitable condition resulting from the treatment of enslaved Africans and there has never been any attempt to bring about reconciliation.The refusal to recognize, discuss and atone for the atrocities perpetuated against Africans created an emotional disease.And without an honest and forthright bid for reconciliation, this blight will continue to tear the nation apart.

There have been some efforts to provide recompense for these wrongs.Immediately following the Civil War, Republican senators understood the need for some kind of consideration for the harm perpetuated against enslaved Africans.Land confiscated during the war was granted to many Blacks who had worked on that land before the war.The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments freed the slaves and technically gave Black males the right to vote and participate in government. Many who remained in the Southern states went to Congress and state legislatures.However, shortly thereafter, the federal government restored the land to former slave owners, states’ rights became supreme and segregation and discrimination laws restored conditions akin to slavery.

This precedent was set long before.In 1640, when two white, and one Black escaped-indentured servants were recaptured, the Black was punished with slavery for life.“Black skin” became a sign of de facto slavery, not only by legal status, but social ranking as well. Not so for the white indentured servants who could become free after their periods of servitude. This manifest racism in the colonies created a phenomenon legal scholars and critical race theorists embrace: “Whiteness has historically been treated more as a form of property than a racial character…..as an object that has intrinsic value that has to be protected by social and legal institutions.”

In 1935, W.E.B. DuBois, in Black Reconstruction in America discussed white privilege, not as an illusion, but a reality in what he called:“psychological wages of whiteness.”He said, “It must be remembered white labor groups, while they received low wages, were compensated by a ‘psychology wage’…..They were admitted freely with all classes of white people in public functions, public parks and the best schools.The police were chosen from their ranks and the courts depended on their votes, treated them with leniency, which encouraged lawlessness.Their votes elected public officials and while this had little effect on their economic situation, it had great effect on the deference shown them.”

Poor white laborers attitude of superiority solidified discrimination and segregation in housing and virtually all other institutions. The Supreme Court, in Dred Scott and Plessy vs. Ferguson sealed the racist status quo, further pitting privileged poor whites and “separate but equal” Blacks against each other.

In 1968, the Nation Advisory Commission (The Kerner Report) appointed by President Lyndon Johnson, warned that because of racism, “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”It also issued an indictment of “white society,” “What white Americans have never fully understood—but what the Negro can never forget is that white society is deeply implicated in the ghetto.White institutions created it, white institutions maintain it and white society condones it.” Some gains were made in providing housing, education and reducing poverty following publication of the Kerner Report.Subsequently, however, the report was mostly ignored.

The Kerner Report should be praised for recognizing the nation’s growing unrest and racial divide, but it called for healing of the nation with recompense rather than beginning with reconciliation.The nation was, and still is suffering from what is now called post-traumatic stress disorder.The psyche is damaged when one participates, or even observes brutality against another human being.In every culture, children are taught right from wrong with reward and punishment.

When humans participate or observe acts of brutality and do nothing to prevent them, those with a sense of right or wrong feel guilty.If that guilt remains in a person’s consciousness, it creates fear, which if not remedied, will fester, causing psychological pain.Striking out is anger masking guilt and fear.It is manifested with America spending more on weapons than on health, education and welfare; incarcerating more prisoners than any industrialized nation in the world; being one of only two industrialized nations with capital punishment; having its police increasingly “protect and serve ” with military armament, thus increasing the likelihood of police brutality.

Some whites say they had nothing to do with slavery, they are not racists and not guilty.Yet they have participated or observed and tacitly allowed institutions and other individuals to perpetuate racism. (Even some African Americans suggest we should forget slavery and move on.) How to deal with this? First, the president should appoint a committee of religious leaders, mental health professionals, historians and lay people to formulate an open and honest discourse on historical, systemic racism that created and perpetuates the racial divide.Before talk of compensation, there must be reconciliation, a discussion that acknowledges a serious wrong to another human being and admission of the transgression of racism and the willingness to change.

There is a need for consideration of this Plea for Reconciliation and Healing of the Nation.But action must come from the people to cure the disease.Will they stand and prove they are the government?Will they act on the principle that without reconciliation, there can be no remedy for the guilt and fear that divides this nation? Reconciliation will bring harmony, justice and peace for all.

Mildred Pitts Walker is a 92-year-old award-winning author of children’s books.As a member of the Congress of Racial Equality, she participated in the civil rights movement.She has been interviewed for the Archives of the Smithsonian African American Historical Museum which is scheduled to open in 2016.Email: mildredpwalker@att.net

]]>AngelaHowardauthorlas@ronchambers.com (Larry Aubry l.aubry@att.net )OpinionThu, 05 Mar 2015 23:50:38 +0000As America’s Attention Wanes, Democracy Growing in Africahttp://www.lasentinel.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14523:as-america-s-attention-wanes-democracy-growing-in-africa&catid=92&Itemid=182
http://www.lasentinel.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=14523:as-america-s-attention-wanes-democracy-growing-in-africa&catid=92&Itemid=182Lately, the United States has moved to aggressively to bolster pro-western forces in the Ukraine and promote democracy in the Middle East and Asia. But once again, the U.S. and other western powers are largely ignoring Africa, even as democratic movements are quietly spreading throughout the continent after a generation of leaders who often hoarded power and wealth at the expense of their people.

This neglect is a harsh echo of the exploitation the continent has been subjected to ever since European powers met at the Berlin Conference in the late 1800s to draw boundaries that wound up toppling traditional, African societies in favor of a map that gave these outside powers control over Africa’s rich array of natural resources.

Now, even as new, global powers like China move in to exploit Africa’s riches, there are powerful signs that Africans are marching into a new phase of their history, as they attempt to assert the principles of self-determination, freedom and democracy, sometimes against difficult odds.

Some of these signs are coming from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the country’s constitution does not allow President Kabila to run for a third term in the 2016 election. Sworn in as president in 2001 after the assassination of his father, Kabila won two subsequent elections for five-year terms.

Kabila has refused to comment on his future, raising concerns that he plans to cling to power past 2016. But a government spokesman has said that the president intends to respect the constitution, according to Reuters.

The DRC is not the only African nation where there are flickers of democratic hope. As a result of disputes over the elections of 2007, Kenya entered a dark period of violence that was driven by ethnic rifts. Indeed, a number of leading Kenyans were charged with crimes against humanity in the aftermath of the violence, according to reports.

But by 2013, the dynamics in this country changed dramatically, as legions of voters participated in what were widely regarded as peaceful elections that brought Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of famous independence leader, to victory.

A similarly peaceful transition took place in Zambia, where Edgar Lungu was sworn in earlier this year as the country’s new president, after winning a hotly contested election that was held after the death of the previous president, Michael Sata.

Reports showed that Mr. Lungu won slightly more that 48 percent of the vote, compared with the nearly 47 percent picked up by the opposition candidate, Hakainde Hichilema. While the opposition complained that there were irregularities in the election, the African Union congratulated Zambians for “organizing an exemplary, successful and peaceful election,” according to published reports.

To be sure, there is a long way to go in Africa. Consider, for example, the fact that Nigeria recently delayed its hotly contested presidential election at the insistence of the ruling party as it faced possible defeat for the first time in more than 15 years. The opposition party quickly denounced the move as a significant setback for democracy in Nigeria.

Africans are nonetheless moving in the right directions – if not always that smoothly. And so while the United States and other western powers focus on bringing democracy to Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia, Africans know that they cannot afford to wait for the west.

But the west is making a grave mistake in ignoring what is going on in Africa. Why? Because the stakes in Africa are enormous. In a 2012 article looking at the state of democracy in Africa, The Economist put the matter in perspective: “Setting aside the quality of African democracy, all but a few of the continent's 1 billion people now expect to vote in regular national polls. That is something which 1.5 billion Asians, for all their impressive economic performance, cannot do.”

Last weekend’s March for Justice and Unity, sponsored by the Black Leadership Coalition, drew a crowd estimated at over 2,000.It was the largest demonstration against police brutality by Black people in Los Angeles.(The Leadership Coalition included over 30 organizations- churches, civil rights, education and business groups and Black elected officials.) The march and rally also stressed the need for unity in dealing with other quality of life issues such as improving the quality of education for Black children and eliminating economic disparities in the Black community.

The question is, will the unity, spirit and demands at the march be sustained?To put the issue in a broader context, today’s column revisits an earlier one on the dismantling of the Voting Rights Act as an example of the need to sustain righteous Black outrage.

Outrage in the Black Community over the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision gutting the Voting Rights Act (VRA) was thoroughly justified, but has not been sustained. For years, in similar and countless other cases, the outrage has been episodic, not sustainable. Within a short time, it’s business as usual and outrage a faded memory.

Countless examples of righteous outrage over the years forgotten, but no less important include:Leonard Deadwyler, shot and killed by LAPD when rushing his expectant wife to the hospital; unarmed Eula Love, killed by LAPD; Rodney King, beaten mercilessly by LAPD; unarmed 13-year-old Devin Brown, killed by LAPD, and more recently, Trayvon Martin. Similarly, wide spread dissatisfaction over public schools’ failure to educateBlack children and abuse by LAPD and LA County Sheriff deputies were met mostly with silence.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision on dismantling the VRA, reactions ranged from “great,“ (conservatives) to “deeply disappointed,” (President Obama) and “outrageous” (Congresswoman Karen Bass).Section 4 is the ”covered formula” the federalgovernment uses to determine which states and counties are subject to continued oversight.Chief Justice John Roberts said the formula was “outdated and unworkable,” and the Court agreed.

Under Section 5, any changes in voting laws and procedures in the covered states—including much of the South—and certain counties in California, had to be pre-cleared with Washington.Butthe court ruled Section 5 cannot be effectively enforced because it relies heavily on the covered formula, albeit the main tool for protecting Blacks and other minorities from state and local governments that set unfair barriers to the polls.Without Section 5, the very power and effect of the entire VRA will crumble.

In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court ruled that monitoring voting procedures under the law was overly burdensome and unwarranted.(This, despite Congress having re-authorized Sections 4 and 5 as recently as 2006.) And despite the bogus claim that America is a post-racial society, race was at the center of the VRA debate and there is overwhelming evidence that Blacks, in particular, continue to encounter targeted discrimination at polling places throughout America.

Dissenting, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said Congress re-authorized the VRA-including Sections 4 and 5 with overwhelming bipartisan support, “….and (since) that body is empowered to enforce civil rights amendments by appropriate legislation it merits this court’s utmost respect.”(Justice Kennedy voted with the majority; he is usually the No swing vote on civil rights.)

Conservatives argue “ancient formulas” are still being applied, not to reverse discrimination, but to benefit a particular political party.Liberals, citing strong evidence that Blacks and other people face continuing barriers in and outside of the South, counter that Section 5 and federal oversight are being demonized by the right for political gain with the intent of continuing to divide Americans over race.

Depending on the particular opinion poll, Americans are sharply divided on affirmative action.Leading up to the Supreme Court’s VRA decision, an opinion poll by ABC News and the Washington Post showed that 76% of Americans opposed affirmative action in college admission.But a poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 68% of Americans favored the principles of affirmative action. Similar conflicting findings are shown in other polls about the role the government should play in trying to improve conditions for Blacks and other people of color. Polls, notwithstanding, Blacks are still racism’ most demonized target.

The court punted on affirmative action, (Fisher v. University of Texas).It neither ruled nor gutted affirmative action, sending the case back to the Appellate Court for further hearing.Many contend in doing so, it reaffirmed the court’s doctrine in the landmark case, Grutter v. Bollinger, (2003).In that case, essentially, the court found that race, ethnicity and gender can be used in admissions decisions in colleges and universities as long as neither is used as a primary or unilateral factor.

The main point is that Black people understand episodic outrage, including marches and rallies, is validated by sustainable unified action. In light of continuing racism and systemic race-based barriers, the Black community must recognize and acknowledge its progress and survival is in its own hands. However, many of us,so conditioned to feel second class, do not see ourselves having a role in developing a critically needed Black united front. Therefore, change requires a new mindset, education, organizing, mobilizing and sustainable action. Righteous outrage can, and should, be is a launching pad for Blacks to craft self-determined strategies designed to forge a more rewarding future.

Last Saturday we came together from many backgrounds and beliefs to hold a march and rally with the essential, overarching and interrelated purpose of building unity and seeking justice in the midst of a nation-wide struggle to end police violence. And we saw this coming together, in defiant and righteous resistance, as a necessary and self-conscious contribution to the many efforts throughout the country to rebuild the movement and continue the larger ongoing struggle of our people, Black people, to create the just and good society we all want, work for and deserve to live in.

In our Mission Statement we noted that, “We come together in the midst of a continuously rising tide of heightened moral outrage and righteous resistance against police violence and the general systemic violence and injustices that still shape and limit the conditions and capacity of Black people to live lives of dignity, security, well-being, equal opportunity and deserved promise. Moreover, we come together as a community in a united spirit and collective voice to reaffirm the dignity and rights of Black people, especially our right to life, to security of person and people, and to freedom from unjust and unjustifiable systemic violence in any form—police or otherwise. And we come together in unity and struggle, to resist official and unofficial violence against us, to seek justice for the victims and for our people, and to build an enduring united front as a wall and way of protection, progress and promise around and for our community, our youth and all our people.

In this regard, we commit ourselves to engage in continuing united efforts to bring about an end to police violence, foster truly transformative change in the criminal justice system, build and strengthen community, and expand our historic and ongoing struggle for racial and social justice. Thus, we stand in active solidarity with the wide range of organizations and persons in this struggle for unity, justice and police accountability. And we applaud and support the young people who have joined in the ongoing historic struggle of our people, who have shown praiseworthy initiative, leadership and sustainability, and who recognize and respond positively to the intergenerational and collective nature and demands of a struggle for and by the whole people.

Furthermore, we note and raise the painful questioning of how do we save, make safe and protect our young people and ourselves from such a high level and rate of race-targeted violence from police sworn to protect and serve. And we wonder how do we advise our young men to act in a context in which so many are regularly targeted (profiled), stopped and searched, harassed, humiliated, abused, beaten, tasered, shot or wounded and killed? Certainly, we also are aware that in such a context of terror and apparent reckless and cold disregard for Black life and Black rights, even the best of counsel still leaves an unacceptable amount of apprehension, fear and terror, and thus we are committed to a unity in work and struggle to lessen and end this unconscionable state of things.

We also understand that our struggle is larger than that against police violence and against the unjust criminal justice system as a whole. Indeed, our struggle is also against the systemic violence of injustice in education, employment, economic initiatives, politics, housing, healthcare, and every other area of life in which Black people are denied the capacity and conditions to live lives of dignity and decency, security, self-determination and shared good. And to achieve these rightful and righteous goals, we recognize the need for an active and ongoing unity, operational unity, i.e., unity in diversity, unity without uniformity and unity in purpose, principles and practice. In addition, we recognize the related need for sustainability, sacrifice, resilience, resourcefulness, cooperative projects, ongoing collaboration, community building and strengthening, and constant struggle on every level.

Our demands are both short term and long term and reflect both local and national conditions and similar demands. They are: the immediate firing and indictment of the officers who killed Ezell Ford and the bringing to closure the six-month investigation of his killing; body cameras for all law enforcement officers and charges of obstruction of justice for any officer who turns the camera off, alters, damages or tampers with it in any disabling way; and collection of comprehensive data by law enforcement and reporting to the Department of Justice any cases of unjustified use of lethal force, racial targeting, stopping without reasonable cause and other questionable practices. In addition, we demand: the creation of a state task force that engages the community in dialogue on ways to increase and insure police accountability; appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute cases where lethal force is used; creation of a Los Angeles County Special Investigation Unit for lethal force cases; and creation of an independent civilian review board to oversee LAPD policies and practices.

Finally, we demand an ongoing law enforcement dialog with the community on issues of concern and urgency; demilitarization of the police in terms of weapons, equipment and practices; strengthening the practice of community policing in hiring, residence requirements and interactions; and review and change of police practices and personnel policies, especially discipline, cultural training and psychological evaluations to move the department away from its racialized and militarized practices in Black and other communities of color. And we take special notice of and support existing efforts to pass legislation to facilitate changes contributing to achieving any of the goals cited.

Our purpose is clear; our demands are just and the struggle before us is urgent and unavoidable. We realize that the way forward will not be easy or short , and there are many difficulties and dangers ahead, but we are committed to continue the struggle, to fight the good fight, and to bring into being the just and good society our people have longed and fought for through centuries of suffering, sacrifice and relentless resistance. And given this awesome tradition and history of struggle, the urgency of the issues before us and our obligation to future generations, we cannot choose or do otherwise”.

Our march for unity and justice was held on February 21st, the 50th anniversary of the assassination and martyrdom of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Min. Malcolm X. On this sacred Day of Sacrifice, we also paid rightful homage to Malcolm, noting that his life and death offer us a model and mirror of excellence by which we can measure and mold our lives around his ethical principles and practice of bearing witness to truth, serving the people, struggling for liberation and making sacrifices necessary to free ourselves, be ourselves and build the good world we all want and deserve. And we remembered and paid homage to Malcolm for teaching us also to always build unity, seek justice, reaffirm our dignity, remember our divinity, do good, struggle hard and walk righteously in the world.

This is the month that marks the 50th anniversary of the martyrdom of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, Min. Malcolm X, who was assassinated and martyred in the 39th year of his life, February 21, 1965, and who rose in radiance in the heavens and now sits in the sacred circle of the ancestors, among the doers of good, the righteous and the rightfully rewarded. In 1966, we of Us designated this day as Siku ya Dhabihu, the Day of Sacrifice, i.e., the day of his martyrdom. We can frame our conversation talking about his assassination, but that would focus on what the oppressor and his collaborators did, not what Malcolm sacrificed and achieved. And we would then miss the lessons of his martyrdom, his conscious choice to give himself to his people and to his faith in a lifetime of witnessing, i.e., teaching truth, service to the people, struggling for liberation, and ultimately sacrificing himself to open the way to a new and righteous world.

So, we remember and honor him in his praise names: Mlima, mountain, who would not move even during an earthquake under it; Moto wa Ogun, Ogun fire, burning bright everywhere, forever lighting the way forward; Mtafuta wa haki, justice seeker, who having been indicted with his people by society, turned the table around and put the judge, prosecutor, prison system, police and society itself on trial; Shahid, noble martyr, who gave his life so we could live free, fuller and more meaningful ones; and Mujahid, righteous soldier, who confronted the grey and greedy monsters of the world without fear, genuflection or forfeiture of the defiant dignity, integrity and audaciousness for which he will always be known.

Malcolm tells us in his Autobiography that he felt and hoped that his “life’s account, read objectively. . .might prove to be a testimony of some social value”. And surely, it is a testimony of great social value. Indeed, it is both testimony and testament, righteous witness and a sacred will, awesome evidence and instruction on how we can live our lives, and if need be, give them up with the unwavering commitment and uncompromising courage Malcolm modelled and mirrored for us. Malcolm thus taught us how to live and die, and even before his death, he had already given his whole life to his people, his faith and the struggle. It was again one of his defining features which he described as “the one hundred percent dedication I have to whatever I believe in”.

It is this total commitment to a cause—faith and freedom; the way of Allah and the liberation struggle of Black people—that molds and makes Malcolm into the man, Muslim and martyr he becomes. Malcolm stated that after studying history and Islam, “I had pledged on my knees to Allah to tell the white man about his crimes and the Black (people) the true teachings. . .(and) I don’t care of it costs me my life”. Indeed, he said, “This was my attitude. These were my uncompromising words, uttered everywhere, without hesitation or fear”.

Malcolm comes to the battlefield as a noble witness for his faith and for his people in the basic and early meaning of shahid in Islam. He declared that he spoke the plain and “naked truth”, free of falsehood, hype and hypocrisy. The oppressor, he tells us, “kept us in the darkness (and grave) of ignorance (and) made us spiritually blind by depriving us of the light of truth”. Malcolm offers us a liberating truth which “will truly set us free. . .open our eyes and enable us” to see ourselves and our oppressor” as we and he really are, and it will “give us strength and knowledge” to build a new, just and good world.

Malcolm, as a living witness, does not simply bear witness in speech, but also in conduct, especially in committed, unselfish and consistent service in reaffirmation of his faith, in furtherance of the aims and aspirations of his people and in meeting their concrete needs. Indeed, in daily life, the shahid bears witness to the truth of his or her faith by exemplifying a life of being good and doing good. And this is ultimately expressed in self-giving service to others, especially the masses of the people, as Malcolm taught, the needy, the downtrodden, and the vulnerable who constantly seek ways out and upward from oppression.

Especially within the context of the Nation of Islam, but also afterwards, Min. Malcolm built and supervised programs to give food to the hungry, homes to the homeless, treatment to the addict, freedom to the captive, jobs to the unemployed, spiritual anchor to the drifting, and ethical grounding to those caught up in the whirlwind of self-injuring and self-destructive practices.

In the final analysis, an ethics of martyrdom is an ethics of self-sacrifice, an ultimate self-giving rooted in conviction, love of the people and transformative struggle. Thus, his life was, of necessity, founded and flourished in righteous and relentless struggle, called in his Islamic faith jihad. As righteous struggle, jihad is both internal and external, and the internal struggle is not only to consistently live the good and righteous life, but also to prepare oneself for and engage in the external struggle to create a context of freedom, justice and peace in which this is best suited. And it is also to prepare one to accept, as Malcolm said, “that societies often have killed the people who have helped to change those societies”.

Here, Min. Malcolm, in anticipating his own martyrdom and that of Dr. King’s, noted that “in the racial climate of this country today, it’s anybody’s guess which of the ‘extremes’ in approach to the Black man’s problems might personally meet a fatal catastrophe first—‘non-violent’, Dr. King, or so-called ‘violent’ me”. Not knowing he would in fact be the first martyr, he still felt a sense of urgency to accomplish his work saying “Anything I do today, I regard as urgent. No man is given but so much time to accomplish whatever is his life’s work”. Thus, he was willing to make the sacrifice as he said, if he could “die having brought any light, having exposed any meaningful truth” that would help destroy racism and radically restructure society.

Malcolm’s life and death offer us a model and mirror of excellence by which we can measure and mold our lives around ethical principles and practices of witness, service, struggle and sacrifice. And it is this rich and enduring legacy of lessons he has given us that makes us praise him in the manner of our ancestors saying, “He will forever be a glorious spirit in the heavens, and a continuing powerful presence on earth. He shall be counted and honored among the ancestors. His name shall endure as a monument and what he has done on earth shall never perish or pass away”.

Islamic State atrocities are just among the latest thorny issues confronting President Barack Obama.We know there are several other extremely tough hot button issues, domestic and foreign, he must deal with. However, even though all U.S. presidents may have been similarly challenged (in varying degrees), it’s common knowledge that unlike none other in history, Obama has been the constant target of racist attacks aimed at damaging his character and effectiveness.That said, there are legitimate complaints about the president’s tendency to waver, and even backtrack, on important issues.And Blacks especially, must insist he gives sufficient priority to their issues—as he does to other groups like LGBT, Latinos and seniors.

We support President Obama because he is unquestionably a positive alternative to George W. Bush.However, like many others, Blacks especially, are very concerned about his propensity for over accommodation and reversing himself on major issues. For instance, on certain important domestic and foreign policy matters, his position is indistinguishable from that of his predecessor.He is a mega change, but as I cautioned even before he was elected, “Those who believe Obama to be a flawless icon will be sorely disappointed.”Legitimate questions regarding some of his positions were raised even during his first campaign , even among liberals and progressives. Grumbling began early over cabinet nominations, his equivocating on a campaign promise to improve faith-based aid on an agreement by religious charities not to discriminate in hiring, sending 17,000 additional troops to Afghanistan and the estimated $787 billion stimulus bill.

Many Americans and arguably, a majority of Blacks embraced the myth that Obama’s presidency would usher in an age of color-blindness, i.e., a “post-racial society.”This kind of thinking, though less pervasive now, served to blunt a comprehensive critique of Obama’s performance.

Ironically, Eric H. Holder, the nation’s first Black attorney-general, was at first anything but accommodating.He urged Americans, in and out of government, to action, stating, “The United States is a nation of cowards that urgently needs to begin to confronting the issue of race before it polarizes the country further….Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial, we have always been, and continue to be, in too many ways, a nation of cowards.”It is evident that even if Obama pre-sanctioned Holder’s remarks, he himself did not, and still, has not, clearly articulated a forceful position on the primacy of race in America.

As for Blacks, too many do not understand or admit that they are only one of many special interest groups, most of whom pound on Obama’s door much harder, louder and longer than they do.Moreover, unless Blacks present strategic initiatives from unified fronts, they will remain perpetual moaners outside of the loop of significant influence.Of course, unity among Black leadership is indispensable for securing and maintaining a place at the nation’s high level decision-making tables.

Six years into Obama’s presidency, many concerns have proven to be predictors.In short, concerns about his over-accommodation and downplaying the role of race were warranted, he has back-tracked on key issues and continued several of Bush’s policies.For example, he embraced national security policies he once criticized and early on, he decided to try five conspirators before a military commission in the prison at Guantanamo rather than in a civil court in the United States.Public criticism of terrorist trials in a U.S. civil court was widespread the president eventually backed down.Remember, in the first week of his presidency, Obama issued an Executive Order calling for the closure of Guantanamo within a year, “to restore the standards of due process and the core constitutional values that have made this country great, even in the midst of war, even in dealing with terrorists.”

Another example is Obama’s voluntarily continuing a Bush policy he criticized while campaigning, i.e., the “state secrets” doctrine which allows the government to shut down a trial on the grounds that it would betray sensitive information.The Bush Administration invoked the doctrine to prevent the disclosure of information about abuses in the war on terror.The Obama Administration has largely embraced the same doctrine.

Still another example is Obama’s signing an extension of three sections of the Patriot Act.One of the provisions allows investigators to obtain business records or other “tangible things” with a minimal showing to a judge of a connection to terrorism.Arguably, such vague criteria are prima facie discriminatory and would likely curtail the rights of those under investigation.

In addition to those mentioned, the list of Obama’s equivocations and accommodations is considerable, ranging from bailing out mega-banks and corporations at the expense of the average citizen, to his war in Libya- as opposed to Iraq and Afghanistan, which he inherited.Of course, he has had to operate under severe pressure, exemplified by the Tea Party movement and recent Republican control of the senate. Nonetheless, he has accomplished a great deal and heading the list is National Health Care, (the Affordable Care Act) for the first time in U.S. History.

Expectations were unrealistic. Barack Obama’s presidency has altered neither racism nor political and economic realities.But it has planted seeds of hope for actual change for those most in need. However, Blacks especially, must continue to insist that the president’s decisions and policies include discernible benefits for them as well.

In a recent song, “I Don’t Mind,” composed by R&B singer, Usher Raymond, and rap icon, Juicy J, we as a community have heard a disturbing message. The iconic duo, voiced their beliefs that it is morally proper for a woman to dance on a pole to support her lifestyle.

This is an alarming message we must address from an ethical perspective with a resistant stance. Did you know the average age of a young girl forced into sex trafficking is 12 to 14 years? Did you also know few young girls escape the harsh sting of sexual degradation?

We must face this unsettling reality. We must not leave our women subject to sexual customs of mainstream media, nor our mothers and sisters subject to degrading insults from unprincipled men and women.

Our women are the divine essence of God, fearfully and wonderfully made. The truth is that we can serve as agents of change. As men and women of valor, integrity and love, we have a voice to speak out against the objectification of women wherever we find it.

In closing, Usher unashamedly says, “I Don’t Mind.” With the same sense of fearlessness, we boldly say, “We Do Mind.” We do mind a woman dancing on a pole for money. We do mind a woman insulted by perversion.

WE DO MIND, therefore, we stand against Usher’s message.We are asking all radio stations to stop playing this degrading song immediately. We are asking all record stores, department stores, big box retail stores, and Internet companies to stop selling the song immediately. Stop, stop, stop! WE DO MIND!

(Pastor Whitlock is the spiritual leader of Christ Our Redeemer AME (COR) Church, the largest predominantly African-American church in Orange County with more than 2,900 multi-racial members. Mr. Lyles is a student at California State University - Fullerton.)

For the most part, Black rage exists submerged, but for poor Blacks, rage is barely below the surface, ready to explode with minimal provocation.Blacks, in varying degrees, tend to submerge feelings of rage, but even the more passive explode occasionally.Research about Black rage focuses largely on individuals, but the potential for overt group rage is just as important.

The 21st century began with a widespread, but absurd claim that America is a post-racial society.That mindset, the financial crisis, emergence of Tea Party conservatism, huge demographic shifts, all tend to obscure any serious consideration of Blacks’ discontent, or subdued rage.After all, don’t we have a Black president? Understanding the genesis and continuing reality of Black rage is crucial for developing sustainable alternatives to the second-class status of Black people in this country.

Today’s column revisits Black Rage (1968), co-authored by psychiatrists William H. Grier and Price M. Cobbs. It is an unsettling, exhaustive analysis of a closet issue embedded in Blacks’ psychological DNA.The book explores the origins and ramifications of Black rage that still beg illumination and are at the heart of unresolved psychological and social challenges.

The book begins, “What the hell do niggers want anyway?Every other ethnic group has made it up the ladder on its own.Why don’t Blacks do likewise?” America began building a case when Black men were first sold into bondage.It developed a way of life, an American ethos, and a national lifestyle which included the assumption that Blacks are inferior. Further, hatred of Blacks has been deeply tied to being an American.

“America is rich and powerful,in large measure, on the backs of Blacks. It has become a violent, pitiless nation, hard and calculating.With the passing of the need for Black laborers, Black people have become useless. They are a drag on the market.There are not enough menial jobs.The facts, however, are simple.Since the demise of slavery, Black people have been expendable in a cruel and impatient land.

The most idealistic social reformer of our time, Martin Luther King, Jr., was not slain by one man.His murderer grew out of that large body of violent bigotry America has always nurtured.To the extent that he stood in the way of bigotry, his life was in jeopardy, his saintly persuasion notwithstanding.

Black men have been so hurt in their manhood that they are now unsure and uneasy as they attempt to teach their sons to be men.They have stood so long in such peculiar jeopardy in America that a “Black norm” has developed a suspiciousness of one’s environment that is necessary for survival.

And Black professionals do not escape racial oppression.If these educated recipients of the white man’s bounty find it hard to control their rage, what of their less fortunate kinsmen who have less to protect, less to lose and more scars to show for their journey in this land?The tone (of the book) is mournful, painful and desolate as the psychological consequences of white oppression of Blacks are described.Centuries of senseless cruelty and the permeation of the Black man’s character with the conviction of his own hatefulness and inferiority is psychologically crippling and the book attempts to evoke a certain quality of depression and hopelessness in the reader and to stir these feelings.These are the most common feelings tasted by Black people in America.

But Black people have also had to develop a genius for surviving under the most deadly circumstances.They have survived because of their close attention to reality.A Black dreamer would have had a short life in Mississippi.And the preoccupation with religion has been a willing adoption of fantasy to prod an otherwise reluctant mind to face another day.The psychological devices used to survive are reminiscent of the years of slavery and this is no coincidence.Psychologically, Black men face substantially the same danger now as then.

We should ask what is likely to galvanize the masses into an effective response to psychological oppression.It could happen in any number of ways, but will it be by Blacks finally, and in an unpredictable way, simply fed up with the racism of this country?It will be fired not so much by any one incident as by the gradual accretion of stupidity into national policy.

One might consider the possibility that if the national direction remains unchanged, a requisite conflagration simply might not come about.Might not Black people remain where they are as they did for hundreds of years during slavery?

Such seems truly inconceivable, not because Blacks are so naturally warlike or rebellious, but because they are filled with such grief, such sorrow, such bitterness and such hatred.No matter what repressive measures are invoked against Blacks, ultimately they will never swallow their rage and go back to blind hopelessness.There are no more psychological tricks Blacks can play on themselves to make it possible to exist in dreadful circumstances.No more lies can they tell themselves.No more dreams to fix on.No more opiates to dull the pain.No more patience.No more thought.No more reason.”

Black rage remains a submerged reality. Therefore, concerned folks must work together so that the book’s disturbing, but redemptive, analysis is manifested in new mindsets and strategies that ensure, for us, a more secure and prosperous future.

This year 6255 (2015) finds us once again observing National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, which occurring on February 7th, takes place also in the context of Black History Month I, a time of deep and extended remembrance, reflection and recommitment. Let us, then, pause to pour libation in rightful and deserved remembrance of our relatives, friends, neighbors and fellow workers who lost their lives due to this horrible and deadly disease, HIV/AIDS. Let us also reflect on how we can aid the living who are well to avoid it and those who are ill to restrain and overcome it. And let us recommit ourselves to continue the work and struggle still before us to triumph over this scourge.

This year’s theme is “I am my sister’s and brother’s keeper”. It is an ethical assertion which commits us, as the Hebrew word for “to keep”, shamar, suggests, to guard, protect and preserve each other. An ancient Egyptian word for this ethical obligation is saw (sa-u) with a similar range of meanings including—guard, protect, preserve, attend to and watch over. Within the meaning of the concept of being our sisters’ and brothers’ keeper, then, is being responsible for them and, of necessity, responsive to them. For only by being responsive to them can we be responsible for and to them.

Moreover, to say we are our sisters’ and brothers’ keepers is to say we see them as relatives, indeed primary relatives and this implies we are and must act as one large inclusive family. And this family we also call community whether we speak of it in local, national or international terms, i.e., in pan-African terms. Thus, our approach to the HIV/AIDS crisis must be to engage it as a family affair, a problem, challenge and way forward for our family. And if it is to be real and relevant, ethical and effective, then we must see and assert ourselves as sources of service, support and sanctuary in this vital and ultimately victorious struggle.

We must begin, as always, in service, giving ourselves in work and good done for those who need and deserve it. For at the heart of all our morality is the respectful treatment of every human being as a bearer of dignity and divinity, and compassion and care for the vulnerable, i.e., the most easily injured, the poor, powerless and the ill, the stranger, prisoner, and the different. And if this is our duty to any other humans, what more do we owe our brothers and sisters? Let us do then the essential things: visit and assist them, talk with and counsel them for the good and against avoidable self-injury and always to get the test, tell the truth and take the medicine. It is carrying out our obligations as fellow brothers and sisters, giving a portion of ourselves to the practice and process of meeting the needs of our community and its members to heal and repair themselves, to prevent and reduce harm to themselves, and to live lives of good and promise.

To be sources of support means joining in the social and political struggle to secure justice for our brothers and sisters, to reduce and end disparities and the inequities that cause and sustain them. It requires building support structures for education, mobilization, organization, confrontation and transformation. Indeed, it means teaching our people the knowledge necessary to protect and preserve themselves, avoid harm to others, secure access to tests, medicines, treatment, care and all services available. It calls for mobilizing and organizing our people into a self-conscious social force for turning this thing around; saving and sustaining our lives; acquiring and using the resources available and needed; building adequately funded culturally competent programs and projects; and confronting the system and ourselves in ways that yield the results we want, work for and deserve. And it means creating together the capacities and conditions for self and social transformation, leading to dignity-affirming, life-preserving and life-enhancing thinking and practices which move us beyond the tragedy expressed in being 12% of the population; 44% ofnew AIDS infections; 43% of those living with AIDS; and 48% of those dying from AIDS.

To be a source of sanctuary for our sisters and brothers is to provide for them safe, secure, caring, peaceful and reaffirming spaces free from stigma, harassment, violence, apprehension and fear. It means not only establishing physical space to provide these conditions, but also contextual space wherever we are by confronting, denouncing and ending stigma, discrimination, isolation and acts and words of hate, harassment and degradation. This means also moving our family, community and people beyond narrow and negative notions of human differences, of manhood and womanhood, of sex, sexuality, humanity itself and worthiness of respect, love, care and loving kindness.

Indeed, we are again, in a real sense, standing outside the gates of the city of Memphis (Men-nefer) in ancient Egypt with Pharaoh Piankhi, confronting a life-and-death situation. Like Piankhi, we must assume and move forward on the fundamental assumption and faith that we, like our Egyptian ancestors, have within ourselves the sources of our own salvation, the internal capacity and will of men and women to choose life over death and bring about a new day and way forward for themselves and our family. Thus, outside the walls of Memphis, Piankhi sent a message to the people of the city relevant for our times, saying “Behold two ways are before you (i.e., life and death), you may choose as you wish. Open up and you will live; close down and you will die”. And he urges them to choose life over death saying, “Do not bar the gates of your life. Do not desire death and reject life”. On the contrary, the people again are urged to choose life, open up to new ways of thinking, feeling, speaking and acting and build together the good life, city and society they all deserved.

So, as we say in Kawaida, there are signs here for those who want to see, lessons for those who want to learn and a path forward for those who want to pursue it. In this teaching, our ancestors clearly call on us to choose life, reject death and do what is necessary to protect and preserve our lives and build a good life for ourselves and future generations. And this means taking primary responsibility for the lives we live, waging struggle internally and externally for the good, and seeing ourselves as ill and injured physicians who must heal and rebuild ourselves in the process and practice of repairing and rebuilding the world. And to do this, we must open our hearts and minds to feelings, thoughts and practices that rightfully anchor, enlighten and elevate us, and make us gladly willing to become a constant and unwavering source of service, support and sanctuary for each other in illness, sorrow and suffering, and in the ongoing struggle to achieve a good life of health, happiness, well-being and wholeness.

Part II. In the midst of this rising tide of resistance, it is important to situate it and understand it in the context of our history of struggle and the culture of struggle that has been built on the battlefield of centuries of righteous and relentless resistance by African people in this country.Indeed, since we landed here in chains, we have fought to defend and secure our right to be free, to have justice, and to live a life of dignity, decency and self-determined good. And the struggle we waged benefitted not only us, but all other oppressed and marginalized groups and peoples and expanded the realm of freedom and justice in this country.

Indeed, it is not an immodest assertion or an exaggerated claim to affirm that no tradition of struggle has been more decisive than that of our people in expanding the realm of freedom and justice in this country. Even given its obviously unfinished and still oppressive form and functioning, we have, with allies and other progressive forces,created through righteous and relentless struggle an America which its White enslaving founders could not imagine, let alone accept.

Thus, let us not naively claim that we can learn nothing or need nothing from our past. Rather let us follow our ancestral teachings that instruct us that our obligation is no less than this: to know our past and honor it; to engage the present and improve it; and to imagine a whole new future and to forge it in the most ethical, effective and expansive ways. Let us learn, then, the lessons of resilience, resourcefulness and sustainment in life and struggle from our own history, our own experience as persons and a people.For as Malcolm X taught us, “of all our studies history is best qualified to reward our research”. And in these studies, let us be mindful that the essential and indispensable text we must always read is the book of our own lives as persons and a people.

Let us then read the record of struggle of our people as they passed through fire and freezing waters, ate ice for water and leaves for bread, weathered seasons of savage times of oppression and were not dispirited, diverted or defeated. And let us learn then not only from reading library or e-books, but also from exchanging with those living and still standing out front and struggling and whose wisdom, experience and caring and continuing commitment merit and compel it. And let us also learn from those who have stepped to the side, but are still involved; and those who have always been on the side, unannounced and often undercover, but provide a vital source for intelligence, legal support, monies, materials and skilled personnel on behalf of our people and our struggle.

Moreover, in our constant and continuous move forward and the building of our Movement, we must be rightfully attentive to the building of solidarities across lines of class, gender, generation, sexuality, age and other social and biological identities to form a strong united front in our righteous struggle against our oppression as a people. This united front, as we have learned and advocated over the years, must be based on operational unity, unity in diversity, unity without uniformity, unity that does not deny or disrespect difference, but builds on commonalities. Indeed, it must be a principled and purposeful unity framed in discussion, forged in struggle and made real in the rich, varied and valuable relationships we build in the midst of common ground interests, work and struggle. In other words, the unity we must seek is one which builds and strengthens community, a community not divided by diversity, but united in diversity, standing together on common ground of our peoplehood, shared interests and shared aspirations to be ourselves and free ourselves, not only from police violence, but also from all forms of oppression and constraints on human freedom and flourishing.

Also, we must constantly renew and expand our ranks with new persons—young, middle aged, and elderly, but especially young people. This is necessary not only because they must and will carry on the struggle when those older no longer can or are no longer present. It is also necessary for transmission of the tradition of struggle, concepts and practices of leadership, knowledge, skills, and experience. Moreover, it produces the vital context and consciousness for ongoing intergenerational discussion and intergenerational solidarity; timely transfer of positions of leadership and relational networks built over time by older leaders. But if this intergenerational solidarity is to be built and sustained, it must be based on the principles and practices of: mutual respect; receptivity to each other’s interests and concerns; reciprocity; mutual caring for each other; shared discussion and decision-making; relational protocols; and shared commitments to our people and their ongoing struggle to free themselves, be themselves and flourish.

Finally, we must constantly push the battlelines and lives of our people forward. In a word, we must continously advance the struggle and the interests of our people, always striving to improve, to discover new grounds on which to define, defend and advance their interests. And as Amilcar Cabral taught us, we must build community and build the people as we fight, turning our weaknesses into strengths and increasing our strength and capacity to struggle and build the good world we all want and deserve.Moreover, as Mary McLeod Bethune taught us, we must keep the faith of our foreparents who are models and mirrors for us in all our struggles and strivings, and who were not dispirited, diverted or defeated. As she says, “our forefathers (and mothers) struggled for liberty in conditions far more onerous than those we now face, but they never lost faith. We must never forget their suffering and their sacrifices, for they were the foundations of the progress of our people”.

Again, at the heart and center of all we do must be our active commitment to our people, especially the masses of our people, always with due and rightful consideration of others and the well-being of the world. Still the ancient African ethical imperative applies: serve the people.Thus, our moral instructions and the lessons of history teach us that the struggle rises and flourishes or declines and disappears depending on how well we root ourselves in the masses of our people and aid them in becoming self-conscious agents of their own lives and liberation. Therefore, Kawaida teaches, go to the masses, work with them, learn from them, share with them our knowledge and skills, help them develop their own strengths; join them in their daily strivings to improve and push their lives forward, and stand with them in active solidarity on their many battlefields for a dignity-respecting and radically transformed society and world.

In California, the talk among K-12 public school parents and concerned others is about more money being available for school districts, accountability for improving educational outcomes for the lowest achieving students and Common Core. (There is no mandatory plan to prepare low- achieving students for the more rigorous Common Core standards.Without such preparation, Common Core will likely harm, not benefit these students.)

Efforts to improve the performance of Black students and other low-achieving students have been basically experimental.(The Los Angeles Unified School District’s (LAUSD) efforts lacked sufficient leadership, political will and adequate resources. In other words, they were not and could not be successful.)

Last year, Education Secretary Arne Duncan denounced the inequities in America’s schools cited in the U.S. Department of Education survey “Data Collection”.He said, “The inequities are socially divisive, educationally unsound, morally bankrupt and economically self-destructive……which must compel us to act.”This is an apt description of continuing race-based disparities in the schools but neither Duncan nor the report elaborated on the reasons for the stark disparities between Black students and almost all other students. The fundamental reason is racism.

One of the survey’s findings should surprise even hardened education pundits: Most of the nation’s schools offer only part-time pre-school programs.Although Black students account less than one-fifth of those in pre-school, they make up almost half of students suspended from pre-school multiple times!

The race-based derivation of disparities in educational outcomes are known but rarely given proper weight. Research on these disparities confirms the obvious but does not address sustainable solutions. Parents, educators and concerned others should insist that to be of value,education research must take into account causal factors. Currently, factors reflecting race-based inequities in schools include the following:Black students nationwide are expelled at triple the rate of their white peers; five-percent of whites were suspended compared to 16% of Black student; Black girls are suspended at the rate of twelve-percent—far greater than girls of any other race or ethnicity and students of color have less access to experienced teachers.Most of these students are stuck in schools that have the most new teachers and countless Black students attend schools where as many as twenty-percent of the teachers do not meet license or certification requirements and one in four school districts pay teachers in mostly white high schools $5000 more than teachers in schools with higher Black and Latino enrollment.

Obviously, such discrimination lowers academic performance for students of color, especially Blacks, putting them at greater risk of becoming dropouts.Recent research also shows the failure of decades of legal and political efforts to ensure equal rights in education for minority students.Brown v. Board of Education banned school segregation and affirmed the right to quality education for all children; the Civil Rights Act guaranteed equal access to education.However, neither has lived up to its promise.

The policy director for K-12 at the Education Trust said the Data Collection survey confirmed that students of color get less than their fair share of in-school resources relevant for high achievement.“Students of color get less access to high-level courses.Black students in particular get less instructional time because they are far more likely to receive suspensions or expulsions.”Although 16% of America’s public school students are Black, they represent 27% of students referred by schools to law enforcement and 31% of students arrested for an offense committed in school.

The following are current initiatives to improve educational outcomes but do not appear to address well- known race-based inequities: Common Core standards, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) and My Brother’s Keeper are still in first stage implementation.Common Core is a nationwide initiative to standardize curriculum and instruction in mathematics and language arts.In a previous column, I described Common Core as both a challenge and promise, i.e., unless Black students receive proper focus and equitable resources, Common Core could actually widen, not eliminate or reduce the achievement gap.

My Brother’s Keeper is President Obama’s initiative that focuses on young Black men and boys, but also includes Latinos and Asians. This is fine if funding and other resources are equitable, not equal. Equalmeans Black students receive the same amount of funding as all others. Since their needs are usually greater than other students’, funding must be adequate for their needs.

LCFF is a California initiative that enables schools districts, rather than the state, to allocate funds to schools most in need.Again, the concern is equity—school boards must allocate funds so that schools most in need actually receive sufficient funds to meet those needs.(Schools with a substantial Black student population in LAUSD are, without question, among those most in need and Black parents and local school communities must demand equitable funding and other resources for those schools.)

Given race-based inequities, solutions must be tied to the needs of Black students especially, because they are the most victimized. Also, keep in mind, solutions are even more difficult because public education in this country was not designed to address their needs. The Black community and its leadership must work collaboratively, with allies, to exert sustainable pressure for new policies and practices that actually improve the quality of education for Black students.This is a daunting but inescapable challenge.